Final Fantasy XIII
by Crow T R0bot
Summary: In a world of greed, War, and Bigotry, 8 souls will determine how peace will be settled, either by saving the world from a horrifying solution, or extinction of all life on the World of Geoss.
1. The Rescue

Disclaimer: I don't own the title "Final Fantasy" or any side characters that resemble previous FF characters showing up in this fic and various wildlife such as Chocobos, cactuars, Mogs, moogles, or the Name Cid. These are all property of SquareSoft LLC/Square Enix, and Hironobu Sacaguchi. I'm just a fanfic writer with my own ideas.

**A/N: As you've noticed, I've deleted my pre and post-chapter skits under the gun of the fanfiction police (make that Gestapo), whom run the very real threat of deleting my story for being written in script format, even for small sections... This same rule raped and destroyed the South Park section, turning it into a cesspool of unlimited yaoi stories and Wendy bashing tales... Be ashamed Xing...Be very ashamed...**

**R.I.P. South Park section 1999-2004**

By the way, picture everything like it's in an anime, but with a CGI appearance to it. And on a final note, I'll be breaking two major but easily dismissed rules about the "playable" characters in this fic.

1.There are 8 of them, not 7 like the other fantasies.

2. There are only two, not 3 female characters this time.

Also, I'm having a contest to see who can spot the most FF character look-alikes in the story, now to just think up a prize...

**Directed by**

**HIRONOBU SAKAGUCHI**

**Character design by**

**TETSUYA NOMURA**

**Soundtrack composed by**

**NOBUO UEMATSU**

**_FINAL FANTASY XIII_**

Some say the world will end in fire

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

**Robert Frost**

It was winter in Verona, the cold, white, powder (not that powder crackheads) had been deposited and distributed in the streets fields and woods around and in the town, the streets were mostly bare, particularly ghostly from it's seeming lack of life and livelihood. Wagons and carts had been covered for the winter, the streets were bare of any cars or vans, they had been tucked away as well in garages jutting out of the houses across the town...

The widest open area was the arbitrarily dubbed "center field," a scant few trees statues and benches dotted the 0.4x0.2 kilometer land, all bare from the early winter and the 3 inch deep snow seemed to make them all but disappear. The life in the town was all but gone, save for two figures wandering aimlessly in the snow in the barely visible path indicated by the slightly shallower layer of snow.

These two figures weren't human by the way. Covered with smooth, dull-gray 3-inch long fur, their toes and fingertips ending with blunt claws, average sized brush like tails. Their faces were adorned with cone shaped muzzle tipped with wet black noses, the palms of their hands and feet were covered with thick, callous pads, and two pointy ears on each of their heads.

They were Wolfens, a race that evolved in the Gotha Archipelago about 400,000 years ago, but that shouldn't be at the forefront of your mind right now, we have more important things to cover for the Fantasy ahead...

The first Wolfen was almost seven feet tall but had a normal not too muscular build for his size and sported a smooth fur coat. He was adorned with a sleeveless black vest and cargo pants as white as the snow around him, his tail hung out through a vertical slit on the seat of his pants that were typical for his species.

The Wolfen accompanying him was his 10-and-a-half-year old daughter, who was the equivalent of a seven-year-old human in the field of age. In this case both physically and mentally. She wore an unusually large scarf for her size around her neck and a sort of red baggy jacket over her black fur and pants similar to her Father's.

Her name was Muse, and today she and her father were visiting the park for something that her Father found special, today was an anniversary of something that happened so many years before she was born. But he never told her quite what, and having spent at least an hour wandering aimlessly in the snow was tugging at her shortening patience.

"Dad, we've been searching this place for hours..." She whined.

"I'm sorry Muse, It's been years since I've been here." Her Father said.

"We're lost aren't we?"

"Not really, we can still see the city." The elder Wolfen replied.

Both the child and the adult were unaffected by the cold thanks to their thick fur coats, but walking without rest had begun to take it's toll on the both of them, even Muse, who was typically energetic as her age implied, couldn't walk much further in the storm.

"Can't we just take a rest, I mean, city or not, this park is in the middle of nowhere." She cited again.

"Well, there's a bench up ahead right now, I guess pausing for a rest sounds like a good idea after all." He began panting as the 70-year old (remember the age equivalent thing I said earlier) anthromorph worked his way to the wide bench.

Her daughter beat her there in a flash and wiped of the snow and was able to comfortably sit down, saving room for her father, who preferred her daughter's idea instead of continuing the trek.

"What are we even looking for anyways?" Muse inquired, "You never told me."

Her father took a deep breath of fresh air before answering. Embracing the swelling of his lungs.

"We're looking for a little something called a memorial." He said upon exhaling.

"There's a memorial, here, in this park?" The pup knew what the word meant, but she never had seen a "memorial" before, not even a picture.

"Not just any memorial..." He grinned "These are to real heroes, even legends." He checked to see that his daughter's ears perked at those words. "Not soldiers, not humanitarians, just the apex of the definition of 'Hero.'"

"Do you know anything about them? What's their story?" The younger Wolfen asked.

He shook his head. "Never mind, it's too long..." he was cut off.

"No, I really want to know, you never even told me why we came here, especially in the middle of a storm like this!" She exclaimed those last few words just for guilt-tripping her father...

He capitulated quickly...

"Ok, but I warned you, just promise not to interrupt no matter how confusing it gets."

She nodded.

"Oh, Aleuma..." He began "...A town almost on top of the world." He looked directly at Muse "Now _that's_ really in the middle of nowhere..."

(A/N: Think of a fading type flashback here people!)

"In those days, a cluster of warring criminal Empires known as "The Network" ran rampant across the world. Everything from Robbery, Murder, Extortion, and Kidnapping was done so they could get rich easy."

In Aleuma, The Deveraux family, the largest criminal Empire within the network had Orchestrated the kidnapping of a young woman, who happened to be the niece of the City's Mayor: Count Foley Stiftarr. If the Count did not produce 50,000 Gil, he would never see her alive again. However, this incident had crept into the mainstream gossip of society, and knowing that the town knew what he did, Foley saw no reason not to offer a 25,000 Gil reward to whoever could save his niece...

...The Arctic village was up in arms within minutes...

It begins...

"The Lodge Restaurant and Game House" was what the sign on the entrance to the gigantic cabin in the seemingly snowed in village. It was a redundant title, especially since it was a high-class place for some of the most respected men in town... The same men who hassle decent people to get rich quick, everyone in the establishment had at least two, not one firearm on their person and without their safety's on. The guests, the waiters, the bartender, even the guy playing the piano carried a pistol on their person. They had come there that night, not to celebrate the kidnapping of course. It would come up in a conversation frequently and others would go green with envy at the name of the man behind it all. They just wanted to enjoy themselves, do business with "junk pushers" and "pimps" and even other "Big bosses" in an attempt to make themselves all the more richer...

What happened in the next minute served them right...

A greasy, red-haired, fancily dressed, chauffeur waited at the podium near the entrance enjoying a fine stick of paper wrapped leaves that we've named "cigars." Having lit it seconds before only to be interrupted so rudely by a fast rapping at the red-wooded double doors at the entrance of the lodge, next to his post.

"Damn guests; ruinin' my cigar break." He muttered as he got the door.

Using a slide-open peephole in the right door, he peered out to the newcomer rather irritated.

"What's the password?" The surly chauffeur demanded to the unknown man.

"The County sent me." Was the menacing reply from the other side of the door.

"What are you fuc-..." He was cut off by the reverberating sounds of holes being rapidly punched through the door and his own person, courtesy of the gun-toting maniac on the opposite side of the door. The sleazy guests of the establishment were either forced to flee out the back door of the scene in terror or slump where they sat as they were riddled with miniature shells. 89 thundering booms later, there was only silence, and no movement.

WAM!

The now useless doors were forced open by black-booted foot, but held strong enough to their hinges to move open fast and remain hinged.

Through the door stepped a tan-skinned young man, at least 20 years old, with a black M-60-ish looking chain gun. He had messy black hair and donned a red sweatband and tan cargo pants, he wore no shirt but donned a pair of ammo bandoliers. He wasn't a particularly muscular man for the ordinance he carried but still seemed quite built.

"Think they gave us the slip, Roan?" Another voice came from behind the gunman.

"Nah, Devereaux has to have her stashed here somewhere, Goran." Responded the young man now identified as "Roan."

The other voice's source stepped in from the cold, it was a man, about 19. He had smooth, silvery hair down to his neck, bright-red eyes, and wore what looked like some black flak vest over a red robe like haori with only one sleeve going over the right arm. He also wore some matching baggy red pants and brown, slip-on shoes that didn't seem fit for walking in snow. Somehow, that didn't stop him from making it here.

"Out of 150 buildings in town, why are you so sure she's here?" asked the newcomer.

"Why not?" was his reply as he took aim with his rifle and walked further into the establishment.

Sighing visibly, the silver haired accomplice, now identified as "Goran" followed his partner into the now war-torn restaurant.

"Hey, is there anyone here who's almost dead!?" Roan shouted while standing in the dead-center (cheap lol alert) of the room.

There was a brief crashing sound as a table flipped over, two very annoyed looking crooks were behind it, dressed in fancy Italian suits and sunglasses, and they both carried fully loaded SMG's, and the irritation to use them.

"All right pal, Geno and I are gonna whack you for spoilin' our appetites!" One of them shouted.

"Hey Goran, look, target practice! Help me out would ya!" Roan said with his attention (and gun) turning to the bad guys.

Goran ran to his friend's side and grabbed a handle sticking out of a sheath on his back, he pulled out a fine, white, steel katana and took a battle pose.

(Play "Battle" From the Final Fantasy VIII Soundtrack)

(A/N: If you want to hear these for real, go to , it's not the same as the real deal though)

A three-round burst of staccato from the first gangbanger's weapon slammed against Goran's chest, it caused little damage but he did step back a little. He immediately regained his composure and rushed up to the shooter, and rended the man with the sword known as "white Katana." He slumped over immediately. The other fighter would have raised his gun too, but Roan immediately brought the crook down with some shots of his own.

(End music and play "Victory Fanfare")

Goran tossed his sword in the air making it spin before grabbing it by the handle and sheathing it while Roan, as a token of his victory grinned, shouldered his Assault Rifle and gave a "Thumbs down" gesture with his free left hand.

"Easy come, easy go." Was his reply. "Kickin' ass and takin' names!"

"Now let's get going, Miss Stiftarr isn't here." Goran said with an annoyed tone.

"I'll tell you where the Count's niece is if you let me live!" Said a voice from behind the bar of the Restaurant.

The duo turned to the bar to see a man in a blue jumpsuit with goggles and blonde hair jumped out from behind the bar, hands in the air.

"Don't shoot, I surrender!" He said with a grim expression of fear on his face. He didn't seem enthused about two guys with a sword and machine gun blowing away all his regular customers like it was no big deal.

"Speak!" Roan commanded.

"Nepocala Devereaux's son, "Stewie" Devereaux has her in a truck at the town entrance, he plans to take her away to Port Eric before dawn tomorrow!" He said, putting his arms gently and slowly onto the bar table (or whatever it's called).

"Stewie Devereaux of the Big Bad Quartet, this is that big?" Roan seemed surprised at this new development.

"The hell do you know about this!?" Goran said leaning on the table and into the bartender's face.

"I-I s-sell info like-li-like this to other mobsters for a thousand Gil every day! I'm just giving it to you for free because of your cleanup work!" He stammered before becoming more coherent.

"Forget it Goran, he's not worth it. We have a bargaining chip for 25,000 Gil waiting for us a couple blocks from here, save your strength and don't waste him." Interrupted an irritated Roan.

"Whatever." Goran said digging something out of his pocket. He eyed the bartender.

"75 Gil." He threw a small wad of cash at the man. He and Roan rushed out of the door, leaving a trail of destruction that'll take a hell of a lot more money than 75 Gil to pay for. All the bartender could do was curse when he realized the damages would cost him all the 12,687 Gil he had made... and then some.

(A/N: I've always thought of Gil as paper money)

"Do you want to throw money away like that?" Roan complained as they ran out the door.

"Hey, once madam Stiftarr is found we'll make up for it!" Goran countered as he followed Roan.

Upon exiting, the duo found themselves in the street in a sort of cross between Klondike Gold-Rush times and modern Suburbia. Cars were parked in the streets and in driveways along log-cabin houses, the logs however, were only on the outside, the insides of the houses were modern, well insulated, and heated.

It snowed year-round in Aleuma; its proximity to the Planet Geoss'(1) North Pole made it frigid cold. Though the street had been salted earlier that day, there were easily 3 inches of the crystalline powder on the street.

"Jeez, why do we have to live in a town that's never gone above freezing in recorded history!?" Goran whined as the cold started biting him like a rabid dog. "Then again, why'd _they_ live here too?"

"You're that certain we're nabbing her?" Roan said in response to Goran's earlier assurance while ignoring his complaint.

"It's a safe enough assumption, I know we'll find her." A now annoyed Goran said running down the block.

"WHOA WAIT!" Roan began charging at him, coaxing a surprised and confused Goran to stop.

"Hey what's the hold-up!" Goran turned to his tanned skinned partner.

"Don't you know anything?" He stopped, catching his breath. He pointed a stretched index finger at his white haired partner "Never assume anything, assumption is the mother of all !-UPS!" He finished with an angry yell.

"Slowing down to argue about things like this is the mother of all !-ups, don't slow us down, let's keep moving so we can find the Count's niece and some 25,000 reasons to do it." He turned in a huff and ran down the street.

Now, aside from the occasional blasting snowstorm, one would expect Aleuma to be rather serene and a benign town. But as our heroes trekked down the powdered street, it became blatantly obvious that the people were restless...

The loud sound of bone and sinew clattering down the sidewalk drew Goran's attention. Four men could be seen, with three ganging up on what appeared to be an overconfident stick of a man, already black n' bruised, he still chose stupidly to fight the more brutish thugs for the sake of lining his wallet. He didn't have a chance in hell to be victorious.

Goran turned around "Hey Roan, I think this guy could get some health insurance if you know what I mean!"

The black-haired man could only grin before removing the belt-fed rifle from his back.

"Hey there boys, how about some REAL MEAT!" Roan shouted as he ran to the bad guys.

"We're in the middle of something but since you were so polite... Come on boys!" The brute called to his two lackeys, who each unsheathed a three-inch long pocketknife. He rushed to the two challengers only slump as a burst of lead pellets hit him in the chest. The two thugs were not discouraged and pressed on. While Roan regained some balance from his burst, Goran charged at one of the crooks and did an upward slash at one of the goons sending him off his feet and sliding on his back in the snow for another foot. The other quickly cut Roan who had his weapon ready again.

A retaliatory burst from Roan's chain-gun and the last of the gangsters went down...

(Play "Victory Fanfare" for a moment before continuing)

The beat up man had rushed up to the first gang-banger before Goran and Roan finished the other two. He quickly took the man's wallet from his body without checking to see if he was dead first.

"Thank you citizens! You just made me 1,500 Gil richer!" With that said, he ran off into the night and was never seen again.

Goran just watched the anonymous vigilante streak into the darkness utterly confused.

"Hey" Roan's voice cut through the snow and grabbing tight hold on Goran's attention. The white haired swordsman turned to see his comrade sifting through the one of bodies of the street scum. Using his free hand, he took a small bottle of gray liquid and threw it into the air. Magically, the bottle burst in midair and sent a now sparkling fluid raining down on the gunman, whose knife wound sealed on contact with the liquid. This "potion" had worked.

"What do you think you're doing?!" He rushed to his partner. "We don't have time for this! Devereaux could be gone any minute!"

Roan shook his head at his friend's thickness. "Hey we need all the cash we can get, if Devereaux gets away, at least we'll have a consolation prize!"

"We won't need a consolation prize if we get there in time, instead, you're wasting it on chump change!" Goran was very pissed at his pessimistic partner's inability to stay focused on the mission.

"Look, I want 20K as much as you but we have to take what comes to you, OK? Besides, the getaway car is right down the street. I can see it!" Roan shouted as he got back up and pointed.

A black limousine lay parked haphazardly in front of an iced over metal gate, the gate was permanently open, unable to move in the unattended 5 foot deep banks of snow that held them at bay.

At the limo, there was someone leaning over the open door to the driver seat, barking something into the driver's ears that was incoherent at the distance our heroes were standing. For this reason, they immediately ran to what was now obviously their intended target.

"Damn straight sir!" A voice bellowed from the driver's seat. Immediately, the man slammed the door on the driver, as our heroes gained closer to the car, they heard to their horror that the engine was revving.

"What the hell? It's leaving!" Goran broke from a run into a full-fledged sprint to the no-longer motionless vehicle.

"Damn!" Screamed Roan, cursing his earlier pep talk to Goran, he shouldn't have taken his time with the thugs earlier. 60 Gil was no excuse for letting 25,000 more slip away.

Goran was eager to stop the car and had more than a chance to do so, it was still moving slower than the red clad swordsman, thus giving him the time he needed to catch up and slit one of the tires open with his blade. He was just a meter from the trunk now. His sword waving in the gust behind he was about to summon the strength and effort to pull it in front of him and press into the cars rubber tires when all of a sudden.

BANG!

Goran slid to a halt just an inch from the sudden flare up of snow from the ground. Stopping, he traced the sound of the noise to the source; a Remington M870 shotgun, held by a man no older than 25, handling with only one hand the aforementioned rifle. He had brown hair, parted to the side and cold, dark green eyes with no mercy hidden within, he wore a blue business suit, not apt gear for the outdoor arctic conditions, but he didn't seem to notice the unpleasant feeling of the 13 degree weather.

"And I thought only dogs chase cars." He said as he lowered his rifle to reload.

"Stewie Devereaux... Where'd you take the Count's niece you rat!?" Goran took a step ahead, his sword still unsheathed from the last skirmish.

"This isn't a movie, peasant." He said placing an accent on 'peasant' to build tension against his new attacker. "In real life, no bad guy's going to reveal his master plan to an unlikely hero, and I'm no different." He noticed Goran's grip on the katana's hilt tighten.

"That's gonna change when I cleave off all your limbs and feed them to you, pal!" Goran threatened. Devereaux remained unmoved.

"Don't forget there are TWO of us!" Roan said with his assault gun in both his hands.

"You know what they say." The mob boss answered. "Three is a crowd. If you want a fight..." He cocked his Remington. "...Then leave now."

He took aim...

(Play "Force Your Way" from the soundtrack of Final Fantasy VIII)

"Goran!" Roan shouted to his partner. "Don't forget about the Fire mana drink we dipped your sword in this afternoon, don't let it go to waste!"

"I'll keep that in mind Roan, I'm looking forward to barbecuing this crook with it." Goran took his sword in both hands, and swung it behind his back as though preparing for an attack on the gangster. Goran's sword pulsed a moment, his will fueling the formula that it had absorbed. A poisonous look from Goran to the brat Devereaux had proven another stage of the apparent predicament...

A sparkling aura of green and blue lights suddenly erupted from Goran, and as he swung the blade, to far away to hit Devereaux, the utterance of one particular word triggered the now prone affect of the sword's magic.

"FIRE!"

In an instant, Stewie staggered as a spontaneous burst of flame blew up in his face, surrounding him and burning his flesh, mildly of course. He took back to his feet, but Roan, was prepared to keep him from getting a shot off his Remington. Taking a step forward, Roan took his assault rifle and fired a three-round burst at Devereaux's chest, but fired too late. Devereaux had regained his footing and just barely dodged the salvo with a sprint to his right.

"Damn it!"

Devereaux practically flew out the town gates, his weapon trailing behind him.

"We just started and you're running away?" Roan ran in pursuit of the kingpin. "Come on, show me some of that Network marksmanship!"

"I don't do requests but..." He stopped in mid-sentence as a flash of gunpowder and smoke exited the business end of his Shotgun. Roan ducked behind the gate as Devereaux fled into the night...

But Goran continued the pursuit while Roan was still getting on his feet. His sword was pointed down in front of him, catching some snow with each passing step. He had already lost the grand prize and wasn't going to let the consolation prize disappear into the tundra, he had to catch him before the town disappeared behind him and he got lost in the arctic wilderness...with a gunman.

A loud crack and a stinging pain to his chest confirmed his fears. Devereaux must not be far ahead. He kneeled prone, trying to fool the heir to the crime lord's throne into thinking he had delivered a fatal blow, he could see through the snow, the mobster was there, at least that man-shaped silhouette... That was walking back towards him.

Goran's grip tightened around the White Katana trying to make sure he made no sudden moves for his assailant to follow up on. He concentrated, certain that he needed it to be as close as he can get before he could eliminate his target for good. Goran tensed, curled his toes with his leg muscles ready to spring straight...

...And leapt forward into the air ahead...

He was rewarded with the sound of metal going through flesh as he felt his sword begin to lag behind him...

The snow 3 feet behind Devereaux collapsed as Goran landed feet first in it, his sword suspended in the air from the swing. The future crime lord slumped on his back just behind Goran. The fight was over...

Out of victory, Goran tossed his weapon in the air and grabbed it as it came back down and sheathed it, now to interrogate him. He turned around and saw the gangster on his face in the snow, and went up to him.

"Now..." He threatened. "Where's the count's niece? Are they going anywhere from Port Eric?"

His question was met with silence. The bastard wasn't squealing like a good loser should.

"How many people do you have there guarding her? What building are you putting her in?"

The mobster was quite the tight-lips.

"Hey, I'm talking to you Devereaux! Now sing!" He angrily unsheathed his sword and poked Stewie with it, making sure he was far enough away to avoid whatever trick he had in store. At the same time, Roan showed up on scene.

"I'm talking to you!" he wedged his sword between the ground and the villain's torso and lifted him on his side... Only to see the look of death on the youngster's face, totally still.

"#&" Was all Roan could say now that he arrived on scene.

"Dude, you don't just kill people that know important stuff!" He spewed.

"I wasn't going to kill the guy, I just-" Roan cut him off.

"No buts Mr. Jovanivic, I've had it up to here with your 'excitement'" The pissed gunman exclaimed.

"I wasn't supposed to kill him, I meant to KO him." He defended, it was a weak defense, but he made it sound strong.

"And that Limousine wasn't supposed to get away with Foley's niece!" He countered.

Goran didn't listen to Roan's complaints, he just knelt and took the gangster's wallet, removing the money within.

"Look, let's just take this 300 Gil and go home. You can bitch and moan some more when we get back." Goran said, now totally unfazed by his comrade's anger.

"Oh, sure, home, where your sister will yell at me for an argument that I had because of YOU!"

Goran didn't respond, he just walked off toward the outline of the town gates. He had to worry about how depressed his little sister would be, not being able to have that shiny jade medallion from the item store any time soon.

Roan sneered in the darkening night as he looked back at the body Goran left behind. He'd lost 25,000 Gil, and now he was faced with a new, dire question... What kind of mobster carries only 300 Gil on himself at one time?

He shrugged, thinking of the more important matter of where they took the count's niece, and what they'd do to her now...

He suppressed a shudder and left after Goran.

Long after he disappeared, a six-foot long piece of snow peeled off of the ground near Devereaux's body, it left a long imprint of where it had been laying. The snow flaked of the being, now clearly a feminine figure that seemed to be made entirely of translucent ice.

It... She casually walked toward the remains of the gang lord, looking down on him with some interest. She then looked to the north where our two heroes had gone back. It's interest now depleted, decided to leave. With only a thought, her ice morphed into the snow around her and her body collapsed in the wind, becoming just another million snowflakes in the unyielding blizzard.

End of chapter One(1) 

(1)Geoss: The name of the world this takes place on.

_"What I have shown you is reality, what you choose to remember, that is the illusion!"-Sephiroth-Final Fantasy VII_


	2. Count Foley's Mission

Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy, It is the property of Hironobu Sakaguchi, SquaresoftLLC/SquareEnix, and from what I can tell, Tetsuya Nomura.

FNG: and now to respond to chapter one's only reviewer: Charles Xavier.

**Charles Xavier**- Of the 3 people I contacted to inform them of this fic, you're the only one to respond and I thank you for that (ironically, I had informed these people of my project months in advance and was even told they'd look forward to it). As for why I'm motivated to write this, it's both the reasons you listed. As an author, it's my duty to be creative and show off my creativity to the thousands (millions?) of people who visit this website daily. However, reviews in my eyes, are rewards for impressing other people and the less impressed people are: the less motivated I am to "waste" my talent (any story that gets less reviews than chapters can't be all that good). So that's why I'm calling upon my favorite authors to encourage me. I'm surprised that you, being a veteran of writing on this site, hadn't figured that out.

P.S.: I've got plenty of inspiration needed to write this story. From only two FF's in fact (7 and 8) and I haven't even finished the latter.

**_Final Fantasy XIII_**

****

It was 11' O'clock as Goran Jovanivic and Roan Polyneices stepped through the front door of their 4-room log cabin that they had been sharing for months now. The two small time bounty hunters slammed the door as quickly as they had opened it. Exhausted from a hard night's failure, they arbitrarily discarded their weapons against the front wall. Roan then just kind of fell on to the beanbag chair in the corner of the room next to his now unused gun. Goran, however, couldn't sit. He was waiting for the third inhabitant to notice their entrance.

'_Have to break it to her slowly.'_ He thought, grimacing at things to come.

The cabin's living room, which was also the entrance, was one of four rooms in the house. There were two doors in the back of the room, the one on the left leading to the kitchen and the right leading to the bedroom. The fourth room: the Bathroom could only be accessed from the bedroom. The walls were made of rough wood the floor was covered with a soft brown carpet and all the furniture was put against the walls creating an empty center. It was as if the TV, study desk, the Oak wood cabinet, and the two couches were all repelled from the center in opposite directions.

The bedroom door opened with a brushing sound against the carpet floor. A sleepy young girl, no older than 16 shuffled out of the door. Her silver hair was made of short, messy spikes, none of which hid her dark red eyes. On her slim figure, she wore a fuzzy, dark green-black gown held by two thin shoulder straps, the bottom running just above her bellybutton. She also wore a pair of gene shorts and white tennis shoes.

Her eyes shot up at Goran, and a wave of excitement and relief swallowed her exhaustion. She sprinted into his arms.

"Whoa, slow down Sis' I said I'd be back before midnight didn't I?" Goran said nearly toppling over himself from the force of his sister's impact.

"That doesn't take away my right to worry, I didn't have to turn the TV on to know the town is a war zone." She said slowly exiting her own embrace.

"We were smarter than the other folks to move downtown." He pointed out. "It was already bad there before sunset."

"I didn't know trucks carried that much fuel." Roan mused from the corner, referring to an incident in the central square earlier that day. "I felt the heat wave before I could make out the explosion."

"Emilene." Goran turned back to his sister. "We didn't catch her."

Goran's Sister, now identified, as "Emilene" looked a bit confused.

"Catch who...?" It took at least three heartbeats to comprehend the meaning of the words.

"So...No reward money then?" she bitterly inquired.

"Just 360 Gil we got from some goons across town." He answered. "Most of it came from Stewie Devereaux himself."

"The leader of Nepocala Devereaux's Big Bad Quartet?" Surprise then consumed her depression. Sure their money was drying up, but to be siblings with someone who slayed one of the world's most wanted men has some sort of bragging rights.

"He ordered the getaway car out of town. If it weren't for him, I could have disabled it and rescued What's her face." Goran looked down. Guilt was slowly consuming his face.

Emilene put her right hand on his left shoulder.

"You say that like it's your fault." Said Emilene. "It's Devereaux's. And something like this isn't exactly the end of the world."

_'...Not yet...'_ He thought.

Emilene immediately changed the subject. "Look, you fought hard all night, it's almost midnight, all of us are tired. So why don't we just get to bed?"

Goran barely formed a grin. "You sure bounce back don't you?"

"Well, we can't mope over it, it's not our fault that all the jobs in the Mythril mines have been taken. Then I can't blame you for being lazy, because you're not." She hugged her brother again.

"You can still blame him for moving here from Port Eric." Roan muttered from the corner. "I warned him the Mythril Rush just wasn't all it was cracked up to be."

Emilene let go of quickly let go of Goran and casually walked into Roan's corner. She cleared her throat so Roan would notice...

The next thing Roan knew, what felt like an anvil, no, Emilene's foot, landed firmly on his diaphragm, it would be 10 agonizing seconds later that he could breathe again. It would only take 5 of those seconds before the sudden lack of oxygen distorted his vision and produced the pulsing headache he would feel for the next half-hour.

On the tenth second, Emilene lifted her foot from the gunslinger's chest and flashed him an innocent smile. A smile that seemed to suggest: "What are you gonna do? Send me to my room without the supper I just ate?" Of course, that's exactly what she did. She just walked back into the bedroom she came from and no one said a thing to stop her.

Roan's lungs reinflated just enough to ask the following question.

"Ow... Who would've thought bashing you would be one of her buttons?"

"Probably people who know her better." Goran answered. "I guess she just thinks it's only fair to return favors for every time I stand up for her."

"I think I'd rather sleep here tonight. I don't think she takes kindly to me anymore." Roan slouched further back as he tried to get more comfortable in what would be subbing for his bed tonight.

"She'll get over it. I mean, this is the first time I've seen her do something bitchy in years." Goran reassured.

"Years?" Roan was skeptical.

"Ok, months." Goran said so the argument would end faster. He waited until Roan closed his eyes before he joined his younger sister in their bedroom. Reward or not, sleep would be a part of it. Rather than worry about tonight's failure, he just lazily strolled to their bedroom. Through the chaos of the dirty clothes pile that would not have been there if they hadn't sold their hamper, among other things, for money; Past the light-red wooden drawer and the mirror Emeline used every morning, and onto the dark green covers of his bed. He simply ignored his already snoring sister in the matching bed on the right side of the room and seemed to fall onto his own, not even bothering to get under the covers to tuck himself in, he was too tired for that...

Then the familiar trance of darkness called sleep slowly sucked away all his senses, as not to distract him from his rest...

The next day: 7:00 AM

"GORAAAAAAN!!!!!!"

Goran woke up with an obvious start, nearly flinging himself out of bed and dragging the covers down with him from sheer surprise of the shout, now clearly his sister's, who then darted into the room, obviously she woke up before he did. He got up, not too happy with his sister's tone of voice.

"Emilene, I'm going to count to zero, why did you scream in my ear?" He said in a rather arbitrary attempt to sound menacing. Only to be met with the same menacing smile she gave Roan the other night.

"Because you slept like a log sleepyhead." She followed with a very faint giggle. "Come to the living room, there's someone is here to see us."

"Who?"

"Count Foley's aide, Martine." She said not feeling like keeping him in suspense.

"Wait, What?"

"I said, Count Foley's A-I-D-E is here, he's talking to Roan in the living room right now."

The suspense in Goran's mind actually grew from this. If what she was saying was true, then something with the Count was up. But still...Why come here?

Maybe he could ask that question in the next room...

Surely enough, in the living room, conversing with Roan, was Foley's Aide: Martine. A blonde man who's hair was combed neatly back in a dome like manner. He dressed in a long sleeve, light blue shirt and a long white diagonal sash going from his right shoulder to his left hip. The Suit was adorned with many gold buttons and honorary Medals, some from his old life in the Military, as they may seem.

"So the Count wants us to come to his place? Could you clarify why?" Roan inquired, answering a question Goran didn't have the chance to hear before entering the room.

Martine shook his head courteously before answering.

"Mr. Stiftarr didn't say exactly why he wanted you of all people, he just said to pick up some essentials such as your weapons and make your way to his mansion at the City Square."

Roan turned over to Goran, not very surprised he was awake. He mouthed something to Goran, who despite not being a profound lip-reader, could make out "I think we're in trouble."

"...No you're not..." came the surprising response from Martine.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!" Roan practically fell head over heels from the reply.

"I guess my Special Forces training from the old days certainly paid off haven't they?" Martine ended his ad-lib with a chuckle. "Come on, I will personally see the three of you to Master Stiftarr's residence." He motioned everyone out of the front door.

Goran's eyes flinched from the burst of sunlight. He continued out the door anyway, into the morning time Streets. Last night, it was too dark to look at the entire Street, but now, Goran, Roan, and Emilene could see last night's aftermath in the clear. Car parts were half buried in the snow and litter had drifted through the wind from several streets and alleys away. It looked more like a weak tornado had gone through the town last night rather than the skirmish that actually happened. Police, Firemen, and Paramedics, and even construction workers were overwhelmed in their respective duties.

Police were still thinly spread from reports of sporadic violence and arbitrarily named "mini-riots" that had been occurring in totally random places at equally random times.

Sometimes, several buildings in a row had dying fires-albeit still dangerous-that tired and hungry firemen were still struggling to extinguish with everything from water, Carbon Dioxide, and Halon.

The latter two incidents and related violent actions all resulted in injury or even death. These were the paramedics' cleanup Area.

It's obvious some buildings would be damaged or destroyed, so two thousand Construction workers all had to clean up after them as well.

And then behold the island of peace amidst a war zone. A Roman style palace stood behind iron gates, no graffiti on the walls supporting them, nothing broken in the yard beyond the gate, and not a single cracked window on any floor of the two story mansion. Judging by the security, the skill of the local ceremonial guards. Standing straight up, totally erect with their gray wool uniforms, the lower half of their faces were concealed in equally dull colored scarves wrapped neatly around their faces. Rather than stand with their automatic rifles shouldered, The Mayor personally instructed them to have them perpetually ready as to always be alert. It had served them well over the last 12 hours...

Martine approached the only guard stationed at the front gate.

"Party of Three requested by Count Foley Stiftarr as requested." He spoke to the motionless guard.

"We've been expecting you Master Martine. One moment please." The guard still seemed absolutely still when speaking, but he pulled a small black remote, only a little smaller than his fist, and pressed the single red button to open the gates behind him, they pulled inward so not to inconvenience passers-by.

"Move along people, the Count awaits!" The aide did not motion the trio to follow him but the phrase made it too clear to be necessary.

Inside the count's office...

The room was awfully tall and large for a mere study, but all paperwork and orders to be carried out, every policy related to taxes, construction, and even the building's management, were conducted from this room. There were at least twenty Two-story black marble pillars of a rather gothic design 10 on each side of the room stretching from the entrance to the dual picture windows behind the desk at the end of the room opposite of the entrance. Crammed bookcases were hidden behind the gargantuan monoliths for reference and other purposes.

At the end of the hall sat a polished oak hardwood desk at least the size of your typical dinner table. The leader of the city-state of Aleuma sat behind this desk. The 50 something year old man was draped in a black formal Army-like uniform with the same sash as his colleague, Martine, as well as matching black dress pants. His head had hair, but the black hair was shaved cleanly with a buzz cut and his scalp shown barely through it. He wore a pair of thin glasses and a thin, almost drawn on looking mustache.

He was grinning...

...What did the Mayor have in mind that brought about this smirk?

"Master Foley!" Called a voice from the other end of the room.

"Yes Martine?"

The aide approached, escorting Goran, Emilene, and Roan with him, it took a considerably long walk to get from that end of the room to Foley's Desk, not to mention the stern eye of the 15 ceremonial guards that were lined up by the columns.

"Here are the so-called 'Bounty-Hunters' you requested." This answer took Goran and his friends by surprise.

"Bounty Hunters, what?" Roan seemed taken by surprise.

Goran was equally confused. "Hey, what we did last night was a part time job! We're not professionals!"

"That's not what my contacts reported about you last night." Foley answered.

"You were spying on us?" Roan didn't seem too pleased that he was being watched by people who should find better things to do.

"In essence, yes. As I was the other vigilantes that showed up all over Aleuma." The Count answered unfazed by Roan's attitude problem.

"Couldn't you have used them for something else useful, like save your niece?" Fumed Roan.

"Ask more politely and I'll answer that next question." Foley seemed to enjoy pulling the proverbial bull by the horns.

"Hey, just please tell us why we're here, what do you need _us_ for so badly." Emilene said.

"Since you came the closest to nabbing my niece last night, AND killed Stewie Devereaux whilst trying, I figured that the three of you could handle the assignment to go after her." Foley replied.

Goran still did not follow one thing.

"What do you mean the _three_ of us?" His eye twitched toward Emilene.

"I was told your sister was excellent with melee weapons like yourself Mr. Jovanivic." He stroked his chin for a second, then continued his response. "Mind if I call you Goran?"

"Don't switch the subject so suddenly... But go ahead with that last thing." Said Goran. "But I can't let Emilene handle something this big, she could get in trouble with what you're asking for."

Foley's demeanor was easily maintained.

"Yes, but I'm told otherwise. She is supposedly quick on her feet, not to mention a formidable opponent with bludgeon type weapons." Said Foley looking Emilene in the eye. She blushed and slowly pulled from behind her what appeared to be a sledgehammer.

"You can't honestly expect me risk a 16 year old girl's life, let alone my own sister, just to save your niece, what the Hell is wrong with you..." He sighed thinking of how he treated Roan. "...Sir?"

"Fear not, she and you will be in good hands for this assignment." The Count replied. "Which reminds me, I have to brief you on this mission."

"Wait" Roan began as he pounded his fist on the edge of the desk, he was particularly displeased with what he was hearing.

"We didn't agree to anything and your already giving us a briefing?" He objected.

"Well, I figured that since the reward is still up for grabs, you'd have no objections in carrying out this mission for me." The Count scored again, and Roan froze in shock.

"...All 25,000 of it?"

The Count merely nodded.

Roan turned around and motioned his two partners to huddle with him, they surrounded each other and discussed the situation eagerly.

"We have another chance." Roan whispered. "Now is the last time we can score, I'd rather not hear any objections."

"Are you kidding?" Goran didn't heed his partner's warning. "We might already be knee deep in shit for killing Devereaux's heir. I don't want to make stuff worse than we're in now!"

Roan sighed. "It was a death no one but us saw."

Emilene backed the raven-haired gunman up. "Hey, we're almost at the poor house, we'd better take advantage of this while it's still in our hands."

"But Emilene..." Goran began but was cut off.

"Don't 'but Emilene' me Goran. The Count's right, I can take care of myself, I'll be Ok." Emilene persistently held her ground on the issue.

"You don't even know what we're gonna do." Goran tried to make up for his previous failed attempt to talk her sister out of this.

"We'll find out in the briefing, I'm sure I can handle it as well as you two! Besides, you know as well as I do we're hurtin' for cash, don't you?" She protested.

"Right Goran, we're almost out of money, so show that backbone I saw last night." Roan defended.

Goran, defeated, sighed and turned away from the circle to the count.

"It's two to one sir..." He sighed "We'll accept your mission."

The Count smiled. "Thank you, you don't know how much this means to me." He lost his composure in an unexpected slouch. "My niece is the only surviving member of my family!"

This action took the trio by surprise, the man who mocked every effort to defy his orders didn't lose his composure until _after _they gave in.

And just as unexpectedly, he leaped _over_ his desk right between the three fighters.

"...As for that briefing..." He said with his tone back to normal.

The Count pulled out a small remote, no bigger than those little key chains you use to set your car alarms with, and pressed a small red button at the bottom of the device. Goran almost lost his balance, and Roan and Emilene backed off the carpet that slowly moved out from underneath them. The Carpet actually sank into the floor a foot and then got sucked under the desk. In the hole was a series of what appeared to be tiny glass cubes only a smidge bigger than the head of a pin, magnetic forces in the unusual device, working in sync with programmed lights produced some of the world's most life-like holograms. Some cubes sank, others rose to create the most photo-realistic images science can produce without film.

The crystalline cubes flexed like an ocean wave, differently colored lights filtered through them, and a form stood before the 5 (Martine was still there). The form, clearly a woman, was not real, but even they could not tell the difference between the real thing and this imitation. The woman, only 19 years old, was the most beautiful thing Goran had ever seen the likes of before. Her silky smooth pale-green hair flowed ever so gracefully like a river down to the middle of her back. Her eyes, like Emilene and Goran's, were fiery reds (I promise that the rest of the characters will have different colored eyes after this one). She donned a dark green wool tube top, and a pair of snow-white shorts that stopped just above the knee caps, and her wardrobe was completed with a pair of dirt brown sandals.

"Friends, this is your target, Linda Stiftarr." The Count broke the silence... And snapping Goran out of his trance.

'She's beautiful.' Goran thought. Those thoughts however, would have to wait as her image distorted and flickered out of existence. The crystals morphed and the lighting changed to create an entirely different image. Tundra, deserts, forests, luscious jungles, grasslands, and vast oceans, morphed out of the light creating the very thing that represented their world.

...A map...

"Spies have proven quite useful in the past few hours..." The Count began. "Moles in Devereaux's organization have indicated that Linda is no longer on this continent."

He pointed to the top edge of the map: Mount Erebus, a vast, frozen mountain sat north of Aleuma, its peak at the very North Pole of the world. Aleuma, the mining town, sat at the foot of this final frontier, and only a narrow road stretching a scant distance across the tundra and going through gradually livelier forests that went southward toward the coast. At the end of this road, was a peninsula encrusted with New England style houses and beaches cluttered with docks and ships waiting to load and unload all the necessities of civilization.

South across the sea was a continent that's entire northern area is graced with deserts and tropical Savannah To the east, was nothing but blood-red mountains carved out with canyons. Only a single port along the coast existed with nothing southward for miles until just past this desert on a green plateau lay a heavily fortified metropolis, many military installations hidden among the innocent but alien looking stone spires that formed the city. The City itself sprawled directly out of the cliff side almost as if it were a plant that had seeded beneath the surface of the mesa thousands of years ago.

(A/N: This isn't the entire world map, just parts the eastern and polar continents. There's a third continent to the west and some island chains but they are no concern to us at the moment.)

"This is the map of the area of the world that is concerned with her kidnapping." He continued. "Immediately after arrival at Port Eric, she was thrown into a boat and taken down south across the strait of Kenro. From there, while it is uncertain, she was taken away from the town and sent off by train to..." He hesitated, thinking the repercussions of his announcement.

"Muspell..."

"..." Thought Emilene.

"..." Thought Roan.

"...Is it too late to turn down that offer?" Goran spoke up.

"25,000 Gil can end a financial crisis overnight."

"..." Goran shut up.

"I see where your objections come from Goran. Muspell has been at war with the world for 7 years now, and with an invasion now entirely possible since all their extra-continental control had been repulsed just last year, the Ultranationalist Government has declared martial law across the entire occupied continent. Needless to say, things are hairy." The Count's honesty didn't sit well with the group.

"That's why you will have assistance on your assignment, courtesy of some rogue elements of the Leonidan Army." He continued. "5 years ago, only a few months after The Republic of Leonida joined the War, the survivors of a platoon were charged and convicted of some war crime, whatever, and later escaped a stockade and solicited themselves to the township of Kenro and took up the title "The Black Cactuars". Since Kenro's Army and Navy are small, and they have no Air Force, they took them in and have a base outside town. You will take a ship from port Eric to Kenro and then be escorted to that base. From there, you will attempt to cross the desert, trying to help the Kenrovians if you can, and proceed to Muspell, preferably under guise of Muspeli soldiers on leave, where you will infiltrate the Network underworld and rescue my niece." The Count summarized the mission.

"Does anyone have questions?" Martine finished for the Count, seeing as he had said next to nothing since he introduced the citizens to his boss.

There was silence...

"If you still want to take up my offer, there is a Limousine at the front entrance to take you to Port Eric immediately."

"Sir..." Goran spoke up in a military attentive stance.

"Yes citizen?" He replied.

"This has to be the most dangerous job offer I've been allowed to choose. I don't approve of having to stand up to experienced military forces, nor do I, or my friends have the training to take on such a task..." He looked to his side at Emilene, and to his other at the worried expression of Roan, and finally to the patiently waiting Count.

"...But your generous offer, coupled with the fact that a young woman's life is at stake, outweighs those dangers, your mission has been accepted." He turned to his friend and his sister. "Have you changed your minds guys."

"Fck no man, those Muspell folk can meet my chain gun." Roan enthusiastically replied.

"War isn't glorious, but if we're going to save someone, we might as well have to join in." Emilene followed their example.

"Then it's settled, you are to travel to Port Eric immediately, by this afternoon, you'll be in Kenro to meet the Cactuars, when you arrive at Port Eric, go to dock 13 and meet with a smuggler by the codename: Red..." The Count added.

"Red? Couldn't you come up with something creative?" Roan commented.

"The fewer syllables, the easier to remember. Now anyway, once Red gets you on an arm smuggling boat to Kenro, you'll meet another informant waiting for you on the pier, if you talk to him, he'll say loudly as though to complain: 'The sub attacks have scared all the bass away.' You are to respond: 'But the Mackerel are still around.'" Foley Continued. "He will escort you out of town to meet the mercenaries, as soon as you arrive, ask for 2nd Lieutenant Cid Scipio, tell him I sent you and the mission will proceed as I explained." The Count was finished.

"To the Limo!" Emilene exclaimed to her two companions as she marched out of the hall with Roan close behind. Goran too, followed until the Count stopped him.

"There's one more thing that I need to discuss with you."

_'Oh no, another lecture!' _Goran thought.

"Here's a little advance on your reward." The stoic Mayor spoke producing a wad of familiar tan monetary notes.

"Wow, 2,000 Gil?" He said removing the payment from his hands. "Wait, isn't it customary to turn in _half_ the money in advance?"

"How do I know you won't settle for less and ditch me?" was his reply.

Goran opened his mouth, but nothing came out. But he made a slight bow of gratitude.

"Thanks Excellency." And then he turned to leave.

Two hours later, a Limousine drove out of the forest surrounded country road and into an age-old colonial style town south of Aleuma. The City of Port Eric was a maze of colonial era buildings and streets packed with foot bound people, more than a fifty thousand in fact. The city was pretty much a few building stories short of a metropolis, but overcrowding was the least important concern when taking into account that every other person you could see was not a native at all. Everyone in the Seaside city had some sort of job related at least with target customers that had shipping and merchant related businesses, and the ratio of natives to foreigners was virtually equal. By "foreigners", we mean people who have jobs that take them here and other seaside cities across Geoss.

None of this was Goran, Roan, or Emilene's concern as they walked through the sea of _people _flooding the streets. The docks were a solid 10 blocks away, and the human hordes were slowing them down. They had fought their way to a surprisingly clear sidewalk in front of a pub and decided that since there weren't any "No loitering" signs in sight, to take a breath.

"...Well one things for sure, we all got our exercise in only five minutes. I guess that counts as part of combat training." Roan joked after taking a few deep breaths.

He would never find out if Goran or his sister found it funny because before they could laugh, the pub's door crashed open with a loud thwack and a dog was pretty much thrown onto the sidewalk.

Of course they at least _thought_ it was a dog, until they noticed that it's legs bent _forward_ and it took an erect stance as it dazedly struggled to get at least in a crawling position first. Of course, the creature, who had gray-black fur along it's back, arms, the tail sliding out the seat of it's pants, and the top of it's head with a lighter shade going over it's lower face, chest, stomach, paws (er, hands?), and the underside of it's arms and tail. The creature, now clearly male, was obviously the victim of a bar brawl. Three toughs-possibly biker or trucker types judging by their attire-marked with a few ignorable cuts and one of them with a black eye, came out to continue the injuries that they seemed to inflict on the "thing" as their narrow minds thought was an apt label.

"We ain't heard of no Lunatar and we don't take kindly to 'Lupers' like you barging into our drinkin' places!" The overweight looking leader of the toughs said, grabbing the 'Luper,' now clearly a Wolfen, from his crawling position and holding him up to face him.

"Hey, let's see how many bones we can brake before we can he can wag his tail right off his ass!" suggested one of the man's bar buddies.

Unlike most beings in the human race, Emilene was panicked at the sight of this injustice to be. Rather than stand idly by and watch the beating-let alone enjoy it-she rushed to the Wolf-man's aid. Goran would've objected feeling it was none of their business, but Emilene had already begun to swing her sledgehammer at the leader.

There was a dull thud as the hammer smashed into the fat in the brute's back. He let go of the wolfen and turned around to come face to face with Emilene, or at least would have had he not been a full head taller than her.

"What do you think you're doing you fat pig? Can't you see he's had enough!?" She shouted pointing at the cut up wolf-man that was steadily getting back on his feet. He indeed "had enough" since now, we could see his chest was covered with at least three, long, bleeding cuts, maybe from pocket knifes, and although it's impossible to tell now with his thick fur coat, there were bruises as big as snowballs under his fur and skin.

"& off you little prick, you weren't here, you're not involved, and he's our problem, we can rough the bastard up as damn well we please!" The Trucker threatened the teen, which unfortunately for him, was having none of it. To complicate matters more, Goran stepped up to intervene.

"This isn't our business Emilene, we have more important things to do, like he said, it's none of our business!" Goran angrily lectured his sister.

"You're siding with this pig Goran? I thought you were better than that! You know we can't just sit back when something like this happens!" Emilene didn't seem too happy with Goran's opinion.

"Listen to your friend bitch. We know you're out-of-towners, which means he's right, you have to let us take care of this troublemaker!" one of the Trucker's friends retorted.

Of course, Goran, being as fickle as he is, blew up on the bigot and took to his sister. "DON'T CALL MY SISTER A BITCH YOU DUMB FCK BIGOT!" At the exact time those words parted with those lips, he unsheathed his sword. Much to his surprise, the other Brutes capitulated and slowly retreated back into the bar.

"Whoa, no retard carries steel like that!" The leader exclaimed as he took three quick steps backward and through the Bar door.

The smallest of the scum was the last through the door.

"You and your luper friend had better be off that sidewalk in 5 minutes or that butter knife won't mean crap against every customer in here!" He threatened unconvincingly before disappearing inside.

Emilene wasn't paying attention to the man's last threat as she walked up to the Wolfen to examine it's wounds.

"Are you okay?" Emilene asked with the most obvious question first.

She waited three heartbeats before the creature answered in a deep, but not ominous voice.

"...Most of these were from previous brawls, I'll be alright if I leave the city now, I'm done asking questions here." He spoke, fully understanding her words.

Roan and Goran came up from behind Emilene.

"Will you be alright from here?" Roan asked the injured Wolfen.

"This is the last time I get beat up for entering a door clearly labeled 'Humans only.' I was done anyway. Now goodbye and thank you." He continued before turning around to leave, but before any of the three humans could take the same initiative...

"Wait!" He said to himself before turning back to his rescuers. "Have you seen another Wolfen with black and yellow eyes around here? He has light gray fur and he's only wearing a pair of black leather pants with some metal buckles on them?" He asked before discovering the crowd in the street had already enveloped them, he couldn't smell them anymore, he hadn't even taken a good scent off them. Sighing in defeat, he headed to one of the docks to take him back home to the Gotha Archipelago.

It was 20 tiring minutes later that those same rescuers arrived at dock 13. No sooner had they spoken with the red bearded skipper had they boarded the ship and watched as the northern continent slowly disappeared over the morning horizon. Their journey had begun...And Goran and Emilene were leaving their home continent in the first time in their short lives.

End Chapter 2

Wow, chapter ended in less than 20 days, Now I know why AnT is so slow to update his stories!

_Nice wheels...What a shame.-_Nick Kang; True Crime: The streets of L.A.

No guns...You're a waste of bullets.-Nick Kang 


	3. The Black Cactuars

Disclaimer: I don't own Final fantasy, end of story.

**Trinity-33-** About that "Find the character look-alike contest." None of the main or major characters are meant to resemble previous FF characters, they only appear in cameos, just to give an example, doesn't the barkeep in chapter 1 have the same description as FF7's Cid Highwind? The Wolfen's aren't based on the Ronsos because they are more "dog" than "cat" (I barely played FFX so could you correct me if I'm wrong as seeing screenshots of Kimhairi(sp?) as a cat like creature). It is interesting to note that Goran is for the most part, inspired by Inuyasha in the field of physical appearance. Think of what would happen if you cut our favorite hanyou's hair up to his neck, gave him red contact lenses, took one of the sleeves off of his haori, cut his fingernails (erm, claws) shaved his fangs down, gave him some shoes, and surgically removed those dog ears. That sums Goran's physical appearance nicely. As for Roan and Emilene, they mostly are original.

P.S. A thanks for advertising I hope the update of your next chapter results in a lot of reviews for the both of us.

Mbgirl: Thanks for the review, I regret to inform you though, that I'm not much of a fan of "Wolf's Rain" but if I find the time, I'll read your story.

Sephiroth1Ripley8: I've already taken your advice before you even told me in chapter 2, but I appreciate the heads-up. And thanks for complimenting my new species, if you like them, then I hope that the Ryu are enjoyable too. There's also a third plot-essential species, but just to name them would spoil a huge chunk of this fic.

Can't think of much else to say, just read on from here people. There's nothing really special in this chapter other than new characters but I promise that the next two chapters will yield some action.

**_Final Fantasy XIII_**

Waves broke against the fishing boat S.S. Torch. Brine and salt washed the barnacles that clung harmlessly to the underside of the ship as she crossed the strait of Kenro to the port city of the same name. The ship's skipper, a.k.a. Red, had smuggled our heroes, Goran, Emilene, and Roan out of Port Eric an hour earlier, and now Goran sat in the cabin as the last unseen bit of the sun found it's way over the eastern horizon with the skipper all too busy steering. As the City of Kenro grew in the window, so did the rock in Goran's throat.

"What the hell am I doing in a war zone?" He asked under his breath.

"Didn't the Mayor or something bribe you kid?" The skipper replied unnecessarily.

"I'm just having second thoughts. Even first time soldiers have them, and I wasn't even trained in _any _branch of any country's military!" He whined.

"Ahh, money ought to change yer mind lad, just concentrate on the mission _instead_ of it though, or you won't like what will happen when you slip up." Advised the red-bearded captain.

No one continued the conversation as the vessel pulled up to the lengthy wooden pier in front of the Desert City. The only green of vegetation came from algae by the sea wall, with a few coastal palm trees on the beaches. Large Mexican style villa's lined the coast and the streets throughout the town, none more than two stories in height, not even Government buildings. The Port was empty for the most part, except for some patrol boats and submarines. The local Naval force was only 60 ships strong, only 15 of which were Heavy cruisers, the fleet had no ships of "Battleship" or "Aircraft Carriers." And thus Kenro was lucky to be in the good condition as most of its Navy was well out to sea on patrols.

Red put a lasso on one of the support beams of the Pier and anchored the boat to the harbor. The heroes jumped onto the deck, surprisingly, Red followed them.

"You're coming with us?" Roan queried.

"No, I just need some drinks. My role here is finished." He walked off the pier to dry land.

"THE SUBS SCARED ALL THE FREAKIN' BASS AWAY!" An angry voice startled the group.

_'That sure was easy.'_ Goran mused as he looked in the direction of the voice. Wouldn't you know it, a fat fisherman, somewhere around 40 years old, was sitting on the edge of the pier, fishing pole in hand. He seemed awfully out of place as a fisherman as he wore tan hiking gear and donned a matching tan cowboy hat with the southern accent to fit with it all. He also wore a red bandana around his neck with small white polka dots in the design.

Goran only took 2 full seconds to process this information before he remembered his answer: "...But the Mackerel are still around." He added.

There was a pause, did he forget the right password?

His fears were lifted when the man put away his fishing pole and got to his feet to see his contacts.

"You here alone?" He questioned.

"Just the three of us. The skipper you saw brought us here, but I don't think he's coming back." Goran answered.

"...Are y'all here for the Black Cactuars?" The man asked.

"We would like to speak to 2nd lieutenant Scipio." Goran answered again.

The man walked up to Goran, whom he correctly surmised was the leader of the trio. He leaned to his ear and whispered something.

"...Meet me at the city gates south of here. I'll escort you to Camp Chocobo from there..." He whispered into the swordsman's ear before leaving the pier. But this conversation was too "short and sweet" for Goran, was that all the man felt he needed to know?

"Hey wait, is that all? I was expecting more answers than that, seriously, come back!" He shouted after the man.

"South gate, as soon as you can. That's all we can say here!" He yelled back without even batting his eye to Goran. He soon walked up onto the dock and past the seaside stores and cafes, out of sight.

"Well, people around here sure aren't very talkative." Emilene commented.

"Didn't seem like that at Port Eric either." Roan added.

"Well, less talking means more time to kill, come on, there's an item shop right at the end of the pier, the count gave us a 2,000 Gil advance, so let's get some supplies." Goran commanded.

"A 2,000 Gil advance, why didn't you tell us until now?" Roan yelled.

"I didn't think it was that important."

"Hey, I didn't have breakfast in Port Eric and I don't want to wait to chew up Army rations, we have to find a restaurant first!" Roan complained.

"Wait!" Emilene exclaimed as she stepped between the duo.

"What is it Emilene?" Roan didn't like this interruption but it was better to hear her out than to argue it.

"Goran's right, if we're going out into the desert, we need some supplies, we only have 4 potions between us so I recommend at least 5 more." She said adding her two cents.

"That's right." Goran commented while siding with his sister. "And there are lots of poisonous creatures in the desert, so we need to get some antidotes as well."

"That still doesn't cover the food problem!" Roan complained.

"If we have enough money left over, we'll check out what we have to eat at the local inn." He added. "Our current cash supply is about 2,560 Gil, and considering the economy in this town, everything is probably dirt cheap. We'll have plenty left over for breakfast."

"Then in that case." Roan took a deep breath. "I think we have a compromise." Admitted the raven-haired teen.

"Let's eat first though, My stomach is starting to agree with Roan." Emilene grabbed her stomach as a weak rumbling emanated from it.

One sweatdrop later and they were on their way to the inn.

(A/N: I don't see much a reason to put anything in here about what they do in town, so we'll just fast-forward to 30 minutes later.)

A brief trip to the item shop yielded 5 potions and 3 antidotes for the journey ahead, the city gates were just down the road and wouldn't you know it! The Cowboy type at the dock was right there with a pair of tan chocobos with no qualms about the heat or facing the real possibility of passengers. Apparently the cowboy had remembered their faces and knew to give the following courtesy.

"Step right up folks, Charlie and Grace won't bite as long as you don't wave yer hands in front of their beaks." He said not waiting for his customers to make the first comment. "The little lady rides with me, you two can get on Grace."

The three part-time bounty hunters took a look at each other and nodded, not wanting to waste anymore time talking before they reached Camp Chocobo. No sooner had they gotten a firm grip on a Chocobo saddle before the Cowboy shouted "Gidyap!" The only response before the impending sprint was a loud "Warrk!" that vibrated from the thick, muscular throat of the flightless birds and out of their beaks. With those cries, the two birds launched forward and into the desert.

"Halt!" Came the throaty yell of a buff looking man more than ten miles down the dirt road. His black skin was stretched to the tearing point with muscle held together by steel tendons. He wore an unusually small, unbuttoned, sleeveless shirt that was as brown as the crusty sand around him. He had a black flat top haircut with a fuzzy but well cut beard, and he seemed very, VERY irritated. He had been standing on this exact same patch of dirt for 10 hours straight with no one to relieve him of his duty in sight. He stood before a wooden gate lined with barbed wire and stood in the small guard post where one could open it just on the inside of the camp. The compound itself was surrounded by 400 feet of barbed wire and two rows of 6 foot wide, 8 foot deep trenches and a 14 foot tall, 4 foot thick brown concrete wall.

The man, whose rank was unknown as he was out of uniform, saluted the Fat man on Chocobo-back as he arrived with three civilians.

"Corporal Tex!" The soldier shouted.

"These are the bounty hunters, Goran and Emilene Jovanivic and Roan Polyneices to see 2nd Lieutenant Scipio. I order you to let us in Private!" 'Corporal Tex' seemed to know the man despite his lack of military attire brought on by the desert heat.

"Aye Corporal. Opening the gate." He pushed a small button on the control panel inside, causing the seemingly manually operated door to open. The barbed wire gates slid in between the concrete and the metal lining seemed to blend into the wall itself. Entry was granted.

The man now known as "Tex" turned around to speak to his three passengers.

"Now people, there's gonna be a bunch of folks that don't take too kindly to yer civilian types around here. Stay close to me until we get on into the command bunker at the center." He cautioned as he motioned his Chocobos to move through the open gate.

The sights to see were what were to be expected of your typical boot camp. White tents to lessen heat insulation _and_ reduce visibility during the event of and air raid, men doing the most invigorating exercises directly under the 95 degree sun, and the drill sergeants to verbally abuse them until the minute they were done. Other Soldiers were shooting at cardboard posters and crude effigies with paintballs to prepare their aim(though not their emotion) for when they would have to fire on real men that would surely attack their base without second thoughts.

Of course, in only thirty seconds of entering the fort, the slope leading to the air-conditioned underground bunker's armored door was clearly visible. The threesome and their escort dismounted their Chocobos and went toward the double-door, this one manned by an older looking man in the brown uniform of the rank "Master Sergeant." He had one of those white, Snidely whiplash-like moustaches and a pair of thin glasses with one of those removable sunglass lenses. Unlike his Cowboy subordinate, he wore some sort of plain-brown safari helmet and a bright blue bandana around his neck.

"Halt, Corporal Tex, state your reason for your need to speak with HQ command!" The Sergeant spoke in one of those annoying English accents that rich people use. He unshouldered his G-55 rifle, which had a disk shaped ammunition magazine and long streamlined body with a long, arch-shaped sight.

(A/N: think of what the FAMAS assault rifle from Metal Gear Solid would look like with one of those ammo cans that gangster era Tommy-guns used on the bottom-back of the rifle, um, yeah)

Tex didn't answer the Sergeant then, he saluted first. "Sarge, these are the three civilians that Lieutenant Scipio was radioed about this morning. Permission to let them in." He announced to his superior.

The guard eyed Goran, Roan, and Emilene carefully, taking up to a full 30 seconds to clarify they matched the photographs that Count Foley had told his unit to memorize for the next few hours. After the examination, he looked back at Tex.

"Permission granted, the Commander's status report probably hasn't started yet, so you can talk to him and the Lieutenant now. You will escort them inside Corporal, and you're not to leave them until someone inside has dismissed you, or until their negotiations are finished."

Tex saluted again. "Yes sir, Sergeant Nigel."

He broke his salute and turned back to our trio.

"You're in, make it snappy, unless it's a life-or-death situation, the el-tee has a short attention span." Tex cautioned.

"He'd better not, I never realized how _boooooring_ it is to not talk for almost an hour, even on a chocobo-back ride!" Emilene announced.

"Now, now m'lady, no complaining in the army goes for tourists to!" The English Sergeant warned.

Emilene didn't care, she just followed Tex, Roan, and Goran into the bunker.

Inside the bunker, over 50 officer ranked men of the Kenrovian Honor Guard, the Elite sub-branch of the city-state's Army, bickered inside the concrete walls of the bunker's war room. Haphazardly placed maps and memos laid out not only on the walls, but right on the line of fold-up tables going from one end of the room to the next. "So far, while our radar has been able to track some of the Disruptor shells, the fact that they are made of pure energy allows awkward deflections of the radar signals, thus they are otherwise invisible up until the last moment before impact." Summarized Major Lee as he concluded the summary of his Regiment's status. 

"That's obviously bad news soldier, if we can't even find out how to track those Disrupter shells, then we'll never find the cannon no matter how many railroad tracks we search." His superior: Lieutenant Colonel Sopol, the Commander of the 13th Battalion answered.

Goran, Roan, and Emilene entered to room, having not heard the conversation earlier.

"We're here to speak with Lieutenant Scipio sirs." Roan unknowingly interrupted.

The Officers turned their silent attention to Roan, not the others, just Roan, whom felt every eyeball settling on his face. And that's a whole Battalion's worth of officers: A Lieutenant Colonel, two Majors, four Captains, and more than a dozen Lieutenants.

"...Er...We didn't get you at a bad time did we?" He said scratching the back of his head.

"Now hold on here a minute folks!" Someone in the crowd broke the silence.

Everyone directed their attention to the end table opposite the Colonel, where a normally built 33 year-old black man with a small Afro and a dark purple long-sleeve jacket with many military related symbols and the logos of famous units on the sleeves sat. One of these symbols was a green armband with a white circle on it, in the circle was an image of a black Cactuar with thick numerous thorns.

"Are these your 'temps' Lieutenant?" The Colonel called from the opposite end of the table.

"Oh they's wit' me alright! They're probably the people the mayor of Aleuma sent for that private mission for my squad!" The young Lieutenant told his superior. "Aren't you?" He added talking directly to Goran.

"Goran, and Emilene Jovanivic, and Roan Polyneices from Aleuma, sir!" Goran said throwing in a last minute salute. "I would assume you're Lieutenant Scipio?"

"You don't have to call me that man, you're a civie, just call me Cid!" He corrected.

"Did Count Foley brief you on the assignment sir...Cid?" Emilene asked.

He shook his head. "Unfortunately, I had to wait for the Colonel to get it for me, I was still reading it when this Staff meeting started." Said Cid. "But from what I've read, I don't want any part in it. Not that I have a choice... I mean...Infiltrate Muspell?"

Roan turned at the sound of the multiple murmurs that went on among the officers. Apparently Cid's statement didn't sit too well with them, everyone except the Colonel seated at the far end of the table.

"Settle down men, we have to..." he noticed no one was paying attention. "I SAID SETTLE DOWN!"

Silence echoed through the room.

"Mr. Jovanivic, if you had come a few hours earlier, I may have still agreed with Count Foley's mission..." The Colonel started. "But then I didn't realize how short on manpower we are. We have been discussing for how three weeks, Muspell has been showing us up with a new super weapon. While we know it's railbound, we don't know _where_ it is, or _what it looks like._ Scouts have gone MIA looking for it, and those that came back said that when they caught up with the train we found it on, it just disappeared. It could take weeks with our own manpower to search the Savannah, and we don't have that much time to look for the so called _Phantom Train_!" He reiterated the meeting that should have still been happening.

"This new energy based weapon has been shelling our side of the front north of the Niobe Delta. The casualties and vehicle toll has still yet to finish counting..." he continued. "If we don't stop them, then they could cross in as little as a week, they wouldn't have to attack this camp... They could just flank it and waltz through Kenro...And that would be the end of that." He finished his last few sentences somberly.

"So now you see why your mission has been cancelled." He finished.

Roan's eye twitched. "Again...But, we just got here...25,000 Gil and a woman's life lost before we could start our job."

"You think that's costly? Think about the tens of thousands of lives that will go to waste once the Muspell Imperial Guard practically _rapes _Kenro next week. We need _every _man we have here _right now!_" He blew at Roan's dismay.

"Now wait just a High-flyin' second Colonel Sopol!" Cid exclaimed as he jumped from his seat only to freeze in place for realizing he forgot something.

"I mean...Permission to speak freely sir!" He requested, as he stood upright with a salute.

_'What the hell...' _Sopol thought. "Permission granted!"

"What if I told you that the whole concept of this mission didn't need a full scale operation... We'd just need a fire team?"

Colonel Sopol looked at Cid strangely.

"What are you suggesting Lieutenant Scipio?" He queried.

"My unit has been on a suicide mission before." Cid reminded the Officer. "Every objective was accomplished, and all five of my men were alive and accounted for when I last checked the debriefing. So I recommend that I take my men-that's five out of _eight-hundred _men and woman in this Batallion-plus these 3 folks from the great-white-north, and a few fireworks from the armory, and we can end these shellings in three days...And that's just worst case scenario sir!" The lieutenant described.

"Lieutenant, I already told you that it will take all our manpower to find that railgun, let alone blow it up! How can you condone only taking nine people, including yourself and three untrained civilians into hostile territory that's kilometers wide?" The El-Cee objected.

"Despite all the action we've been seeing for the last couple years, I'm surprised you've forgotten about the process of reconaissance." The Lieutenant informed. "There are plenty of Muspell bases and occupied towns near the railroads where these attacks start. I've got the feeling that a few infiltrations, maybe just one, will tell us where them weapon's kept, and then we just have to walk right on to it and pop it right off the tracks for good. Know what-I'm-sayin' Sir?" He explained

"He's right sir." Major Lee suggested to his superior. "Nine people isn't that much based on our last headcount from a week ago. Our lives are riding on The Niobe line and they can't hold out anymore. Their numbers might be down to squad size by the time those two armor and mechanized divisions can finally waltz across the delta and in to Kenro."

"Wait a second!" Goran finally spoke again while interrupting the staff meeting.

"Shouldn't we have say in this? I mean, you kind of assume we want to go on a suicide mission when we just want to rescue someone and get off this continent."

"Yeah, I didn't come here to nuke some cannon that we don't know where it is, I came here for a chance to make money!" Roan added to his argument.

The Colonel's mood hadn't faded, now it was Goran's turn to face his wrath.

"There's something we have here called a code of conduct civie!" He gruffly pointed a pen at the sword fighter. "One of the rules of this code is don't speak unless spoken to. If you haven't heard of it, then you don't belong in this fort!"

"Well you just spoke to him now, so I guess he can talk back!" Emilene said throwing her wits at the Lieutenant Colonel.

"Listen, I didn't sign any contracts with Count Foley, especially not one about participating in a search and destroy operation!" Protested the near adult.

"That's not what Foley told me when I got that transmission 12 hours ago." The Base Commander corrected the temporary mercenary. "He promised that on your way to Muspell, you're to help the Kenrovian Army any which way you can when given the opportunity. That means no questions when I send you out into the field, meaning all three of you are honorary Privates in the Kenrovian Army until you get Linda Stiftarr out of Muspell, providing the Devereaux syndicate hasn't taken retaliation on her for your actions back home." Sopol countered.

"Honorary Privates?" If Goran had any pleasure from hearing that title, then he was doing a good job covering up the way he felt with a perfect scowl.

Sopol turned his attention back to Cid.

"Lieutenant, your mission has been approved, gather your unit together and take what you need from the armory."

Cid stood out of his chair to salute his superior "Sir, Yes sir!"

"BUT..." There was always a "but" with the veteran. "Should you fail to complete your objective by next week... Don't you or your men _dare_ bother to come back!" He threatened.

Now the trio was truly unwilling to face the mission ahead. Now, Not only could they be allowed to turn back, now they were being thrust into the biggest conflict in the world since the Thousand Years War mentioned in lurid detail in the ancient scriptures. Cid however, did not lose his composure under the Colonel's promise.

"That motivation will not be necessary sir!" He said as though the Colonel said nothing else.

"For your sake I hope not." Colonel Sopol said, seemingly insulted by his subordinate's lack of fear of him. "You and your 'recruits' are dismissed for immediate armament and departure."

"Thank you sir."

(A/N: AUGH! TOO MANY "SIRS!")

In the middle of the Western Wall of Camp Chocobo was a brown and white camouflaged concrete bunker that like the command center, went at least three meters underground before the actual room was accessible. Goran, Emilene, Roan, and Cid were lined up inside with five other people clad in desert warfare gear similar to the English African Safari hunters of the early 20th century. They had their backs to a rack lined with G-55 machine guns, the standard rifle of just about every military except that of Muspell and Leonida. After all, the bunker was the main armory of the Fort. There was only one Battalion at the camp, but the hollow warehouse was piled up with cardboard and steel boxes tasked with protecting the sensitive rifles, pistols, magazines, and grenades inside to supply an entire Brigade. Each designated "Hallway" was actually the result of neatly organized stacks of these boxes with half-empty gun racks placed between every two metal support beams, for their were no separate rooms inside the compound.

"Ten-shun!" Cid commanded to his mercenaries.

The five men in the room raised their shoulders, sucked in their guts, and aligned their necks and heads as straight as their bodies were meant to be. There was a silence for five seconds.

"At ease brothas'." He said in a surprisingly unprofessional manner.

The five men slouched a little in relief.

"Black Cactuars, today, we have three new recruits who are to follow us on an assignment, which will mean the difference between life, or death for the folks who give us our paycheck back in Kenro." The Lieutenant began. "We can equip them all we want, but if they are to be an honorary fighter in our organization, we must know us, and we have to be friends wit' them likewise." He looked at the threesome. "Tell us about yourself newbies."

Goran noticed that Cid had his hand in a fist with his thumb pointed straight out at him. It was safe to surmise he was gesturing the white-haired boy to go first. So Goran saw it fit that he would step forward to name himself.

"I'm Goran, rugged mountain man, and top-notch sword fighter. I've been able to best people with guns for five years." It was a cheesy introduction, but at least it was short, all he had to do was let Roan, and Emilene do theirs.

"Roan Polyneices, I've been using chain-guns since I was 12 years old, my father put me through a military school..." He trailed off for a second reflecting on his younger years, but shook his head and continued. "...If you need some light artillery you can count on me when you can't count on your own men Lieutenant!" He finished with a salute.

_'My turn!'_ Emilene thought with enthusiasm.

"I'm Emilene Jovanivic, Goran's sister, and..." She realized she hadn't thought what to say about herself.

"...and..." She stuttered, something just entered her head. She might as well use it, because she may have taken too long already.

"...and..." She burst into tears "...and I'm an alcoholic!"

There was a distinct thud as her two companions mysteriously fell over.

Cid walked to the two males with a stupid grin on his face.

"Huh, you guys will fit _right_ in with the Black Cactuars! I can see you begging to be in our corps right now." He ended with a chuckle.

"I don't believe my first introduction was formal." The slim black man pointed out. "I'm 2nd Lieutenant Cid Scipio, but again, since your still technically civies, you get the privilege to call me 'Cid', 'specially you little lady." He directed the last part to Emilene.

"Cid" then turned to his comrades.

"Step up one at a time boys, go from left to right, step up and say somethin' 'bout yourselves, you have 10 seconds each."

The first two commandos were familiar faces. The first man in fact, happened to be the thin-moustached Englishman in front of the command bunker. He stepped forward immediately after Cid finished his sentence.

"Master Sergeant Nigel Tunney." He began. "My marksmanship has earned me the right to be Cid's right-hand man. After all, do you know anyone who can shoot a grape off a Chocobo's head from 200 meters...without a scope?" He smiled. "I think you'll grow to like me in no time..."

"Next!" Cid rudely shouted over his second-in-command. Not that it was completely rude since he had just completed his intro anyway.

The familiar cowboy "Tex" seemed to burst forward considering his deceivingly girthy appearance.

"Corporal Tex at your service kids." The cowboy wannabe bellowed. "If you can make it, I can blow it up with only a Roman candle!" In an unnecessary but image enhancing act, he unholstered and spun a pair of Colt S.A.A.'s Revolver Ocelot style, creating a speedy blur of .357 caliber might before reholstering the instruments of duel. "I also make the finest pancakes on the continent!"

There was a pause before Cid gave out the next "Next!" So it went to prove that even for a seemingly loose guy, he respected the institution of the military by doing the most anal things to keep order.

If Tex was big, the 41 year-old brute overshadowed them all at 6-foot 10 inches. The shape of his torso however, made it next to impossible to determine if the man's frame got its size from muscle... Or fat; the common build of a football player. He had a fuzzy, short, gray, beard so rough it could probably lacerate a Tonberry's skin.

"Private First Class Steele." The beefy guy in a normal sounding tone of voice. "Stay the hell out of my way when shit hit's the fan in the combat zone, because I don't give a flying Fck that you're between my five-five-sixer and my target." He paused, thinking of something else. "Don't tell the Colonel I said that or you'll die on purpose out there."

"...Next!" Cid hailed.

A large 30 year-old, small in relation to Tex and Steele stepped into the limelight. Like Steele, his size seemed to come from a unique combination of Muscle and fat. He had a black beard going in a sort of ring around his chin and the edge of his cheek bones as well as messy, heavily unkempt black hair going on the side of his head. However he was wearing a tan cap over it to conceal that he was bald on the top.

"My name is Private Rickles, and I will be your carjacker for this week. Enemy security also happens to disagree with me, so ask for my help if you want to argue with it."

"Next!"

The last of the six Cactuars took his single step forward. He was small 28 year-old man with a pencil-thin, seemingly drawn on moustache, and stood at a meager 5-foot 8 inches, and didn't carry much gear other than a safari helmet and the shirt on his back. He had a red handkerchief bandana tied around his neck and at his sides was a dual holster for a pair of .50 caliber handguns, each having a handle adorned with the unit's mascot. He also wore brown, knee-length leather boots.

"I'm Private Yates, I'm the Cactuars' scout, so you need not worry taking point, because that's my preassigned duty." It seems he hadn't thought of much an introduction for himself so he nodded to his commander to finish.

"Well, I guess now we all know each other." Cid said in acknowledgement of Yates' gesture.

"Men...and you." He said taking a second to acknowledge Emilene. "We's workin' on a schedule tighter than the noose around a fat man's neck, I think the Colonel Sopol's report sums that up pretty nicely." He said losing his soldierly formality. "This isn't like Thebes, that was a milk-run compared to what we're up against."

"With all due respect Lieutenant, what does blowing up the 'Phantom train' entail that earns this mission the 'suicide' label?" Nigel immediately inquired.

"Because that's only half the job Nigel." Cid answered. "Once the cannon is gone, we's got another mission given to us by the Count of Aleuma for fifteen-thou'" The mercenary continued. "We's going on a POW rescue... right in the heart of Muspell herself!"

A murmur could be heard growing into brisk chitchat. Discontented chitchat nonetheless. A high-pitched crazed chuckle could also be heard coming from Rickles' direction as well.

"15,000...As in Gil?" Emilene pondered the young lieutenant's statement.

"Well of course, we're mercs, we don't do something until someone casts a fishin' line wit' cash on it into our lake."

"You want us to go into the valley in the shadow of death? I thought you told us there was a difference between being brave and being stupid Scipio!" Steele pointed a pudgy finger at the annoyed El-Tee.

"You secure that shit Steele, and you wonder why you fell from Sergeant Major!" He said pointing a more professional finger at his hulking subordinate. "That means you squirts too!"

The murmur died, but not immediately.

"We may have heard some funky crap about the POW camps, the random police searches, the mid-street executions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't act professional while we're in that death trap." Cid sternly eyed his comrades-in-arms.

"The count's 'pendin' on us to get her niece back from the Devereaux family, who I'm told has been buddy-buddy with the Old-man Katarno since his military career. If we's lucky, we may get to meet one of them and bust a cap up their ass!" Cid said with an accent on "ass."

Another murmur echoed through the armory.

"We's men...Are going to bust some heads in Muspell, and when we do, Alma Katarno's gonna know that he ain't invincible no more!"

**_End Chapter 3..._**

And that's the end of "The boring chapter." Now give me some input and I'll be moving on to the more action-packed next chapter in due time!

_"Here's a cultural opportunity for you, this place is the birthplace of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."_- Anna Grimsdottir: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.

_"So this is where all that peace and love came from."_-Sam Fisher: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.


	4. Search for the Phantom Train

Disclaimer: Please read disclaimer at beginning of first three chapters.

Blue Dragon X: Thanks for the review, and thanks for writing "Fantasy Thunder." A while back, tell me if/when you'll do a sequel.

BTW, sorry for the long wait, but I made this action-packed chappy extra long for your reading enjoyment.

****

Final Fantasy XIII

Nobody likes the Savannah of the northern east continent. Red-orange soot formed a self-grown carpet from Kenro to the Muspell plateau, from the Middle Ocean to the Wyrm Mountains. Sure, since this is a Savannah and not a pure desert, life is abundant, but even they look like they've seen better days. Reedy bushes and shrubs make up for the sparse population of trees that on average, can be as far as 40 miles apart from each other.

Chocobos in the area took on a dirty brown color for their environment, and were much more feral than their cooler climate cousins. Their animosity was drawn from days without food or water. This didn't stop them from falling prey to the nimble Cactuars, who used the flightless birds as their nourishment.

Of course, the Black Cactuar Mercenaries thought nothing of this harsh Eco-system's cycle as, while mounted on nine of their own tamed Chocobos, charged south across the desert plain to kick off their so-called "Suicide Mission."

Goran, Roan, and Emilene and their Chocobo mounts flanked Cid as they sprinted across the afternoon desert. As hard as the sun beat down on their more winter-hardened persons, the wind in the faces of the part-time warriors provided adequate arctic substitute for them as the temperature reached it's 100 degree mark.

"The Niobe River Delta's just ahead boys and girls!" Cid shouted over the collective footsteps of the birds. "Here comes the hard part!"

"Hard part? I don't like the sound of that!" Goran shouted back at the jived El-Tee. He didn't hear him, but Goran would have had felt some mutual fear if he had known that Cid would have indeed agreed with him.

There was a noise of thunder that quickly drowned out what little skepticism there was...

Over a craggy hilltop was truly a sight to behold on any soldier's tour of duty. What were once just traces of smoke over the horizon proved just to be hair growing from the head that was a battlefield.

There at the foot of the hill, a two-mile wide collective of islands forming a heavily sunlit marsh in the middle of the Savannah separated opposing sides of the war zone. To the west was a rocky, sand lined river, with life seemingly growing out of the water's edge and onto the banks as many as 20 meters inland.

To the east of the delta was an ocean cluttered with two dozen warships, randomly firing between each other as enemy lines soon mixed in together, forming a confusing melee as cannons fired seemingly at totally randomized trajectories. For all the Cactuars knew, the enemies may have been fighting amongst themselves rather than against each other.

On the north side of the swampland, the Kenrovian Fighting 74th Infantry division, despite it's brutal artillery barrage against the Muspelis the morning earlier, were getting hammered three times as hard as their neighbors to the South. 100-meter wide craters coated with glass, which for many centuries was sand until a matter of weeks ago, or days...Or even hours ago. Molten slag lay within these craters, whether they were swords, rifles, parts of cars or tanks, or even pack howitzers, were left entirely up to the imagination of casually observing newcomers, for they were so severely melted, no one could tell what they were.

On the South edge of the Delta, the Muspeli seemed to sit idly by as their opponents were getting hammered by a virtually invisible enemy, an enemy that dropped a blob of radiant green energy randomly on the frontlines with devastating precision.

This slab of "Solid Energy" vaporized an artillery column at the outermost edge of the line. Goran could make out men's outlines before a great green flash enveloped the column and replaced the land with black glass.

In a horrific twist, the temperature generated by the "shell" was so high, that once the artillery pieces had liquefied, steam emanated from the blob-like hulks... Wait! That's not steam! The titanium making up the cannons was turning from _liquid_ into _gas_. The superheated titanium spread slowly across the field and scarred the earth beneath it, any men it even came near, let alone contacted, burst into flames, as well as tents on the front. They didn't even need to breathe the burning cloud to be destroyed, merely get in close quarters with it.

"This here's the hard part folks!" Cid warned as his Chocobo slowed in fear. "Follow me west, we's gonna try to cross _away_ from enemy lines!"

The Chocobo train took a tight veer to the left as they approached the marsh. They couldn't afford to make a 'suicide charge' real suicide, so they would sprint lengthwise across the rear flank of friendly lines before crossing the next river ford.

To his side, Roan could see many a man in Safari like gear as they charged from place to place, spreading orders and reports throughout the confusing battlefield. Orders that seemed contradictory from equal ranking officers further hampered the efficiency of the Kenrovians as a rain of thunder continued to fall out of the sky.

Emilene grimaced as many a scream was cut short by additional shelling from across the marsh. Explosives and shrapnel sent dirt flying for a solid 50 meters, even splashing on her skin and shorts. She was half expecting a burnt chunk of metal shrapnel to have severed several vital arteries by now. Of course, self preservation and determination took higher priority than fear, so she hugged her Chocobo mount for dear life as Yates, riding right at her side, guided her and her mount across the battlefield.

As the number of soldiers thinned, so did the shelling, but the three heroes were no less scared for their lives. The Black Cactuars provided no comfort, but they all knew they had a mission, and so they mushed their chocobos forward until the last waypoint long disappeared behind them. Even as the last soldier disappeared over the horizon, The squad could still see hot, green, flashes burst like lightning before their very eyes. It was then that Cid came to a halt, and with him, the entire force. Right there, were a series of ancient stones carved out of the riverbed, still jutting out of the current.

"We's crossing over here kids." He indicated the stony bank. "Time to drink big guys." He ordered the Chocobos.

Without warning, all the Chocobos jumped out of line and set foot in the river. Goran almost lost his balance and bobbed awkwardly as his mount bent it's long neck over and dipped its beak in the river. He could clearly see its beak rapidly open and shut and it's throat expand and contract as it took in precious life enriching water from the wide river.

Of course, Goran was the lucky one, Roan's Chocobo was even more exhausted than its friends. It waded deeper into the river than it's comrades.

"Whoa hey, not so deep. Get back to the shore." Roan vainly tugged at the reins on his mount.

Once the Chocobo's legs had completely submerged into the stream, it bent it's legs... And had a seat in the torrent for a long overdue cooldown, dunking Roan to his chest in the river.

"Dammit you overgrown Ostrich get me out of here!" He complained as he tugged even harder than before.

It was for naught, he ignored the Gun-wielding pre-adult and dunked his head in the Niobe for a sip.

"I warned the bloody fellow that GONK wasn't in as good shape as the others." Nigel mused. "Never go with the first one you see I always say."

"Like the first door you opened at the Radio tower at the Wyrm Mountains?" Cid mused on an earlier mission.

"That was some freakin' luck you had there findin' us an escape chopper." Rickles said in memory of the near failed mission.

"That was different!"

Emilene couldn't care less about the argument at hand, she tugged on her Chocobo's reins and followed Roan's mount: GONK into the slow waters. Roan hadn't even tried to swim away from his bird but bobbed gently on and off his saddle as his own weight tried to stay strong against the current. He looked over his shoulders as a swishy, splashing noise caught his ears. He saw Emilene and her Chocobo wading into the river after him. The silver haired girl held out her hand to the pre-adult, offering him a ride back to shore.

"Hey, it looks like you could use a lift out of there."

"No shit, this guy's acting like he lived in a frying pan his whole life!" He complained as the Chocobo rapidly shook it's wet head, splashing more water onto Roan as he sat in the water.

"Then just leave him up to his business and get on, FLOD here has room enough for two more." She indicated her mount.

Roan grabbed her hand and pulled himself onto the Chocobo's side.

"Is that a weird way of telling me I'm fat?" He mockingly answered.

She giggled the tan man made room for himself behind her. He stopped for a second to shake out one of his ammo bandoleers.

"Wark!" FLOD said before gently pecking at GONK's neck. "Waark Wark!" He said as if warning the other creature.

"Wark, Waark!" It finished with an annoyed hiss. The gesture sent FLOD on his way back to shore.

"Hey, what do you think you're doin' comin' back here?" Cid shouted out as Roan and Emilene noisily emerged from the river. "We want to get to the other side of the river!"

"Damn it!" Roan whispered, not wanting to get soaked again.

"Let's get a move-on KLUG!" Private Steele tugged on his mount's reins as he still drank. "You can come back here once we get camp set up!"

His beast of burden finally responded as it jumped a few feet into the air and nearly knocked the football player off his saddle.

"Hey Steele, I think KLUG could use a few more sips, we'll meet up later!" Tex advised as his Chocobo: GRAU, led the Southerner across the Stepping stones of the Niobe.

"We won't go that far behind the bank, we'll set up a nice campfire before we do any scoutin' 'kay?" Steele's sidekick, Rickles insured.

"Come on you dumb F&ck! Get a move-on!" Steele warned his mount.

"Word of advice Private..." Nigel warned, "Respect your Chocobo, or he'll kick your ass."

"Word of advice Sergeant." Rickles warned. "Don't say that to a caveman who's a 3-time winner of Annual Chocobo wrestling contests in Kalevala."

"You learn something new every day Rickles." He looked at Goran, Roan, and Emilene, still mounted on their two Chocobos, not really doing anything.

"Chaps, go on ahead, the rest of us will cover the rear as you cross." Nigel ordered.

"Sorry sir." Goran said as he tugged the reins and sent himself across the river.

"And Roan old chap, don't worry about GONK, or the other Chocobos for that manner, they can find their way back home." Nigel added.

"You mean we're giving them up?" Goran's surprise was none too pleasant.

"We'll need to be a tad more stealthy if we're going to find the 'Phantom Train.' Their noisiness will just give us away every time we go covert." He explained. "Once we set up camp, they're heading straight for home."

"How will we get back to Kenro when the mission's over?" Goran asked worried.

"We'll figure that out once we arrive in Muspell, in the meantime, just get across the desert, we've got a call of duty ahead of us." He indicated the river and the desert beyond.

"Now cross chap, we haven't got all day!" He reiterated his orders.

"Yes Sergeant." He said complacently. "Gidyap." He ordered his Chocobo.

The flightless bird stood and stretched upwards from its rest. It took a powerful step forward off the bank of the river. It seemed to bounce across the River's rocks as it skipped its way to the southern bank, following it's three comrades that have already crossed.

There was only a gentle splash as the Chocobo slightly lost it's footing and nearly slid itself into the river. Fortunately, the graceful animal was well enough coordinated to keep nothing more than its toes from sliding under the water. The bird maintained it's balance and continued to jump across the stream, as it's other six friends followed it.

With the bank cleared, and the sun now on the western side of the sky, the gang continued their trek across the Red sooted sands of the Savannah. Unlike the marshy plot that grew around the Niobe Delta, the landscape around the team was unscarred by war and free of pestilence. Though the latter came from the short supply of plants considered edible to most destructive insects.

A pair of small tan moogles flapped their little wings to fly to the group. The social creatures were prone to loneliness of the outback setting of the environment. Emilene, who couldn't help but notice the eagerness of the furry, white critters and smiled.

She tugged on FLOD's reins.

"Alright, slow down FLOD, we're getting some new passengers!" She tugged tighter until the bird was down to a walk, watching as it's collective went off ahead of it.

"Get on guys, I don't bite." She indicated the furballs.

The first Moogle hovered over and slowly landed in front of her lap, or what would be her lap if her legs weren't kept separate by the way she was sitting on the saddle. The second moogle took it's position on Emilene's shoulder and made a quiet cooing noise. This made Emilene smile, taking her mind off the sun that was no longer overhead, but to her side. She took a moment to carefully lift her left arm and scratch the belly of shoulder mounted creature, working her way across the furry stomach and up to it's fuzzy chin and throat. It happily exposed it's chin, sticking it's head in the air for the unorthodox massage.

Emilene took her right arm and made sure the other moogle would be satisfied with a nice rubbing of the head. A rattling purr echoed out of the moogle's throat, it was pleased to be treated to such generosity.

Emilene suddenly stopped and frowned, she gently pushed both moogle's off, raising her shoulder to encourage one to fly off and then picking up the other and letting it fly off the Chocobo.

It would be dusk in an hour or two, and the group was getting way ahead of her as their shapes got smaller and smaller on the horizon. She turned her smile back into a grin and looked at the confused moogles.

"It was nice to pet you, but I have to go. Take care." She waved with one hand as she tugged the reins with the other. FLOD took a few steps forward to let his rider adjust and then broke into a run after 5 steps. The moogles watched curiously as the short-time pet owner rode away into the distance.

They decided to continue their quest for edible insects after she disappeared into the horizon...

With the sun down, the Savannah had come to life. What was once windy silence has been replaced with the call of crickets and nocturnal birds. Desert dwelling lizards had emerged from the Earth as though it had bore them itself, ready to feed on those crickets. The Chocobos and Cactuars had rearranged their priorities and gone into hiding, rewarding themselves with sleep for surviving the day.

The only Cactuars still awake were the arbitrary "squad" we have been following all this time. The gang had their backs to a hollowed out tree, long since dead from abuse by its termite inhabitants that abandoned it so long ago. Roan cooked a marshmallow on a stick up close to the fire, wedged between the hulking Steele and Rickles, as everyone else relaxed, and Private Yates was nowhere to be seen, having been sent to scout before a fire had even been made. Using the dried up branches that rotted naturally off the dead trunk, the 8 men and one young woman had started a camp fire to spend the next few hours around before heading right into enemy territory. They wanted to wait until they were certain every base within a hundred miles was asleep and inactive. The real challenge however, was staying awake themselves at that dark hour.

Emilene and Goran's crimson eyes gazed vacantly at the starlit sky. Since they were 5 and 8 respectively, they had never laid eyes on the inky white dotted sky at night. Storms in Aleuma were nightly occurrences, and since they moved to Port Eric and later to Aleuma, they never got to see what the sky looked like at night.

"You ever try counting them?" Nigel pondered aloud to the siblings.

"What?" Goran slipped out of his trance.

"The stars lad." Nigel iterated.

"...Too much work." He grunted before attempting to return appreciating the distant giants.

"But have you even tried boy?" Cid asked, not that he was interested, but wanted to make conversation.

"I haven't seen stars since I left Kalevala." He answered. "When Mom died, Dad wanted to go out and see the world, he settled for Port Eric until his time came."

"Wait a sec... You're from Kalevala?" Cid leaned to his side, having lost his interest in the first subject.

"Our Mother was secretary to the Leonidan State Minister." Emilene filled in.

She hesitated before continuing.

"She was killed by some Apartheidists when they tried to bomb the State Minister's car in the Capital: Kalevala..." She lowered her head. "...They say whoever did the bombings was trying to prevent stable race relations with the Wolfen population..."

"You guys were around during the race riots?" Cid asked tactlessly.

"Whoa, Cid, I don't think they-" Tex warned his commander before Goran interrupted.

"Well, the bombing itself didn't kill our mother, she was hospitalized less than an hour later and was in a coma for a day and a half..." He groaned before continuing.

"Someone found a reason and strength to throw a concrete block through her first floor window."

"...Well... That sure is gay ain't it?" He surmised.

"You were always one for tactfulness el-tee." Tex ad-libbed as he produced a flask of gin from his belt.

"Its not like that alone makes you a good officer." Goran said.

"Say what?" Cid didn't really take kindly to Goran's words.

"Sure, I know what Drill sergeants are like and all, I don't need to see one in person to know their jerks, but you really have to work on your demeanor. I don't know how these guys respect you with all your jive-talking and how you've been able to outrank old man English over here." He indicated Nigel.

"Hey, that's only because he used to be a Major, foo'!" Cid insisted.

"I'm ashamed to say what happened." Nigel said with a plain but straight face. "It's a long story."

"And another thing..." Goran continued. "How come you don't have a gun, what kind of soldier, let alone an officer, goes into battle empty-handed?"

The other four Cactuars looked at Goran, a little confused for a second, but then only shrugged.

Cid raised his hands revealing he was wearing black leather gloves with steel linings going over the areas on the finger bones stopping at the fingernails. Small, bolt-like knobs protruded ever so slightly from the metal linings, to provide extra pressure whenever it's wearer, Cid, decided to bust some heads with them.

"Guns are noisy enough when other people fire them kid, and swords are just too messy. These two hands are just fine and dandy with me." The Lieutenant defended.

"Wow, those things look like they'd hurt a lot!" Emilene exclaimed at the sight of the twin gloves.

"Oh don't be ridiculous girl, my hands are always safe with the shock-absorbers these little guys have." Cid corrected.

The two teens looked at the el-tee with disbelief.

"There are shock absorbers in there?" Emilene couldn't see how they'd fit in the thin gloves.

"Funny thing, the glove itself _is_ the shock absorber, made from some secret Ryu plastic-metal hybrid that those guys keep to themselves along with pretty much all the world's secrets."

"Those were made by Ryu? Aren't they supposed to be like, isolationist or something?" Emilene was really surprised now.

"That's the thing, they's just isolationist, not xenophobic. There is a difference other than spelling between those two words, y'know."

"So you're saying you got these from _them_ yourself?" Goran probed further.

"I used to do a lot of interspecies wrestling east of here in Yggdrasil before I returned home to join the Army. Those guys make a lot of custom shit, so I asked for these gloves as part of my wrestling costume..." He paused. "Those sure were the days."

He turned his attention back to the stars with glassy eyes.

"Just don't eat their Sylkis Spices, shit, my tongue couldn't taste a thing for days." He shuddered and changed the subject.

"I don't know about you, but no difference in body chemistry can make me believe those guys can down one of those things, let alone the 3 dozen the guy in the table next to me ate." He added.

Down by the fire, Steele and Rickles flanked Roan by his right and left respectively as he roasted a marshmallow on a stick like a good little camper. The two hulks were pestering the messy-haired man with questions since the fire had started, and their brutish but sarcastic demeanor put Roan in no position to object.

"How does a little old stick like you carry that big bad belt-fed, huh?" Steele said as he practically sneered the question about Roan's gun out of his mouth.

"I bet he can do it cuz' he's psychic, hey, try calling him some of your names Steele, I bet he'll light you on fire like a Wolfen at a lynch mob!" Rickles said in vulgar speculation.

Steele let out a high-pitched monkey-like laughter, almost psychotic in nature, save for it's relatively quiet tone.

"Even better, you try it Rickles! _I'll_ be able to see what _he_ does, and then I'll tell you once I put you out."

They both laughed, though Rickles' laughter was considerably creepier. 

"Y'know, I haven't said a word to either of you two since we sat down here, and I intend to keep that going. So if you didn't come over here to roast marshmallows with me, you can go back and piss off your own buddies." Roan warned.

"Hey, pestering our squad got us down a rank before, and I can't go any lower than Private." Rickles eagerly corrected Roan.

"I used to be a Sergeant Major 'til I started shooting stuff other than the crap on the targeting range." Steele added.

"Hey, you should have figured out that Captain Rhodes might have needed that spare tire for his jeep." Rickles reminded him.

"Ah, the guy's a dumb f%ck anyway, I bet he hasn't gotten over it yet."

"After 9 years... You're probably right." Rickles threw in his two cents.

"All done." Roan whispered as he removed the crispy white blob from the searing heat.

It peeled off when another stick, commandeered by Rickles, jabbed into it's gooey inside and pulled it onto his own stick. He giggled and immediately ate the white blob right off... The wood fragments and the searing heat notwithstanding. Steele and Roan both laughed.

"Rickles, I think there's something to that Karma bullshit after all." He laughed before Rickles grabbed enough composure to jab the PFC's left hand with the burnt end of the stick. Steele retracted it and dropped his own stick with a start.

"Aye! The hell was that for!?"

Rickles spit out the piping hot marshmallow.

"I just proved you right Steele, that's what that was for." He answered before breathing onto his hands to see if his breath had become too hot.

"There's a burglar in the mart!" A distant voice shouted, drawing everyone's attention to their right.

Cid grinned, he knew who it was.

"Right on time Yates... Right on time!"

True to his anticipation, the scrawny Private Neville Yates darted down a hillside through a patch of dried up brush and gracefully leaped over a large fallen branch to his Fire Team. In his left hand was a silenced Automatic pistol, and the other, a large, heavy looking brown leather duffel bag. These did nothing to weigh the scout down, or hinder his balance as he returned to his teammates with his Reconnaissance results.

"What's the word Yates? Is it lights out there yet?" Tex immediately interrogated while Cid got out of his seat.

"Now hold on a second Corporal, he didn't even say if he found any bases Tex, give the man some time to breathe first!" Cid instructed Tex.

"Quite the contrary sir!" He took two deep breaths. "Just one and a quarter kilometers South of here is a huge Muspeli camp. There are several bunkers and a pair of airstrips, not to mention tents as far as the eye can see. It's lights out time, so there's bound to be some useful intel we can pick up from there!" The Private summarized.

"And you guys said we was lost!" Cid mockingly replied to his underlings. "Steele, grab the other bag, and boy..." He indicated Roan. "Put that fire out. We's leavin'."

"Boy?" He said with a sneer. "I'm 20 for your information!"

"I rest my case."

"Don't argue with him Roan, we have a mission to carry out!" Goran cautioned his friend.

The tan-skinned warrior groaned and picked up his belongings.

True to his word, Yates led his squad to the enemy garrison in only 17 minutes. There, exactly as he described, was camp Tonberry. The Stronghold seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon, with the eastern side of the camp consisting primarily of as many as 1,500 makeshift tents the size of greenhouses with a brown-tan camouflage scheme. The other half of the stronghold was a permanent base, with wooden barracks and concrete-reinforced bunkers, not all of which were above ground. A large gap between the buildings, and a large radio tower, indicated the location of the twin cross-airstrips.

Needless to say, Camp Chocobo had nothing on this place...

"Merciful bitch Rickles, do you call that a 'camp?'" Steele worriedly examined the stronghold through his binoculars.

"Geez Steele... There's got to be a whole Brigade living there."

"A whole Brigade... How many men make up a Brigade anyway?" Emilene asked her brother.

"Ordinarily..." Cid answered on the swordsman's behalf. "...Four to five thousand."

"Four to five _thousand?_" Goran said barely suppressing an "eep."

"We can't all go in." Cid deduced. "Even with light's out, patrols are gonna be thick in there. Only a few of us can go inside."

"I realized that too sir." Said Yates adding his two cents. "So I already took the liberty of infiltrating the laundry room at the edge of the camp."

Yates put down the duffel bag he had carried back to the gang. He slowly pulled the zipper open, just to be on the safe side, and revealed the bag's contents... Four greenish-brown Muspeli soldiers' uniforms, with all standard desert warfare gear, and even three green circular caps with black sun block visors sticking out of the front, and Cid had his very own officer's cap.

"I found a size fitting myself, you Cid, Rickles, and our new friend Goran here."

"Why do I have to join you?" Goran questioned.

"You need to start throwing some of your weight around chap, I thought this would be the most prime opportunity." He answered.

"You can't be serious! Even if they see me in uniform, I'd never be able to be convincing, they'd know I'm a spy the very first minute I got in!" Goran objected.

"Oh I wouldn't be too sure of that dawg, I know the perfect Trojan horse tactic that'll leave those M-bastards none the wiser..." The small afroed man smirked.

"Tex, make with your malt liquor bottle and empty it most of the way. Everyone that Yates didn't get a uniform for: Follow Sergeant Nigel Southeast, according to the map, there will be a dirt road leading to a railroad crossing. Find handcart and bring it over there, then hide in the bushes, some auto patrols might be coming, and you can't expect it to be us, or you could find yourself in a world of hurt. Nigel's in charge until I get back. As for the people coming in with me... Anyone know the words to 'Cuz' I'm A Man?'"

The Sergeant and his second in command, a Corporal, were the only two guards posted at the Northeast entrance of the Northern Desert's Camp Tonberry. Having been charged with the duty of watching the easiest route into the base. They watched with unwavering vigor as the night passed them by, not the least bit interested in stargazing, and well aware of their duty.

Spies could not be allowed entry into the camp, the only instance that any enemy infiltration unit had successfully penetrated the walls, had already been detected before he left with any valuable information, he was captured and sent south to the Political Prison at Fort Dis. However, punishment did not cease at the demise of the intruder, all the guards charged with perimeter duty, including himself, had been rounded up and subjected to not only a -3 rank demotion, but subjected to fourteen uninterrupted hours of "disciplinary action."

The Sergeant shuddered and paused to look down at his two off-colored thumbs, since their original dismemberment was undone using ground Ryu horn powder and some cure spells to regenerate the lost extremities. Unfortunately, their condition was brought on by long since infected stubs, which not only made the replacements discolored, but the new digits were not as flexible, and went numb frequently. Those interrogators were sick, but the Sergeant saw no reason to admit it, for it, as well as other actions carried out by the armed forces, had been standard military protocol for the 15 years that President Katarno had established his power.

His recollection of history was interrupted when 4 desert troopers, walking with their arms overlapping each other's shoulders, walked down the dirt road to the front gate. From right to left, the cadre consisted of a fat, balding black haired man with an unkempt beard, a scrawny mustachioed man with a red handkerchief bandana around his neck, a black officer with a small afro, and a young white-haired boy in his extremely late teens carrying a nearly empty glass bottle labeled: S'MORE SCHNAPPS.

The foursome were clearly drunken, they were dazedly singing some random country bumpkin song to no one in particular. The fat one even waved his hip once or twice at one of the high notes of the song they were chanting.

"Never wake up early in the morning..." They sang cheerfully.

"Don't get drunk till late at night."

"Don't believe in oooverworkin'."

"And I never treat a woooman right!"

"Cuz' I'm a man..."

"Cuz' I'm a man..."

"They're as drunk as monkeys." His subordinate pointed out the obvious.

"I like to be the center of attraction..." They suddenly stopped their song as the young soldier held out a bottle to the stern Sergeant.

"Take it now." The "drunk" officer ordered through a slew of giggling. "He ain't that generous when he's sober!"

The Noncom rudely confiscated the bottle out of the gray-haired Private's hand and placed it on the counter in his post.

"Run along you drunkards, I'll speak to the Colonels about your "liaison" in the morning." The Sergeant snarled.

"Maybe I can 'tell' him you've been pissing on camp grounds, Sergeant." The officer of the group countered.

The Sergeant said nothing, but his look was of grave irritation. He did nothing to stop the Tipplers entry into the base.

Little did he realize, he'd lose more than his thumbs next time...

Three minutes passed before the Perimeter guard and his crony were out of sight, the foursome's awkward stumble turned into a sprint off of the main road and in between two wooden barracks. The three Cactuars and Goran had now found a perfect spot to discuss their next move. They avoided huddling and unholstered their weapons of choice, except Cid, who was empty-handed.

"Time to split up boys." Cid started.

"Wait, where are we gonna find our info? I'm not really skilled enough to infiltrate any radio stations, and I have no idea what to look for!" Goran objected.

"You've got to be kidding!" Rickles covered his mouth, lined up with an amused grin.

"Cut him some slack Rickles, he's new to this." Yates warned his only equal in the Cactuars.

"Who said we were gonna look in them bunkers?" Said Cid. "We've got the less guarded crap right where we can walk in 24/7/52!"

"What kind of 'less guarded crap?'"

"Toilet paper." Yates whispered.

Goran couldn't believe his ears.

"...Toilet paper?" He repeated incredulously.

"Geez, what are you kid? A parrot?" Rickles said, now truly annoyed.

"You'll see sooner or later, now let's all break up and leave no stall unturned! When we've cleaned all the water closets, we're leaving, don't stop to pick up stragglers. You though Rickles, stay behind and hotwire one of the vehicles at the motor pool. Try to use one that's inconspicuous, like a command jeep, I don't think they're just gonna let anyone waltz out of here with a BFG Carrier tank." The Lieutenant summarized. "Picking up stragglers is your job Rickles, we're on our own otherwise."

"Way ahead of you El-tee." Rickles whispered before hastily saluting and leaving the group behind.

"Alright, now let's find ourselves some TP, remember, leave NO stall unturned." He reminded before he departed.

"Wait, you still haven't explained-

Goran was cut off as Yates grabbed his shoulder.

"Now's not the time for questions lad, just look for the toilet paper and get it over with!"

Then without so much as a "good luck," Yates hastily departed in the direction opposite of Cid.

"No one ever cuts me any breaks." He thought irritably.

He peeked back out to the road he took into the camp. There were only two barrack housings on the other side spaced pretty far apart, 25 yards in fact. In between and past them, a shack with a door with a crescent moon carved into it was positioned against a chain link fence. No soldiers were present on the straightforward path to the shack, and Goran saw no movement whatsoever in his peripheral vision. Remembering he was in enemy uniform, he slowly and casually strode the 15-yard route to the outhouse, which common sense had now dictated to our hero, was a bathroom. He slowed to a tip toeing pace however, when he noticed the distance between the two barracks provided a space for campfires, and that several burnt patches of ground could give away his presence if stepped on the wrong way...

(CRUNCH)

He froze on the spot... He saw that he had stepped on the charred gray remains of a former log.

No one rushed him... There was no ambush...

Silence...

He began to breathe again at last.

He continued his quick tip-toe-trek to the outhouse, a goal he reached in a matter of seconds.

He reached for the knob and hesitated again. What if someone was using the bathroom inside? Surely they'd notice trouble was brewing if he started searching through the commodes for TP.

He dwelled on the conundrum for three more seconds before formulating a legitimate excuse. It was then that the stall door creaked open and the false Private slid through, quietly shutting the portal behind him.

Goran's composure eased when he saw the dark room, the light was sufficient enough to see that aside from a sink and a strategically positioned mirror just across from him, to the left, three wooden stalls concealed working toilets ready for use. He sprinted across the plain concrete floor to the first, already open stall. He was disappointed almost imminently, for while the toilet was clean and essentially "healthy to look at" the toilet paper roll was empty. It still bugged him as to what the significance of such "luxuries" posed strategically to the mission at hand.

He shrugged, figuring Cid would tell him later, and moved to the next stall. That door too, was open, but this time, hanging from the roll by a thin rope, were a cluster of multi-colored papers ready for "wiping up."

He lunged for the roll and removed it from its handlebar without factoring in the angered man behind him.

Goran was violently grabbed on his shoulder and spun about face to meet a surprisingly young Colonel, an unfeeling looking man with blonde hair and intimidating blue eyes. Judging by the less than happy Corporal behind him, the Brigade commander had come for a late-night dump, and had not wanted to deal with the possibility of intruders while by himself.

"What are you doing with this?" He sternly raised the hand Goran held the "toilet paper" with.

"It's for my Captain!" He lied. "He has dysentery!"

"Your mouth says yes-yes, but my fist says no-no." He cruelly joked as he pulled back his arm to leverage a punch to Goran's face.

Goran clenched his eyes closed just before a hard thwack came from behind the Colonel. There was no punch and for a fraction of a second, Goran thought he'd passed out until he opened his eyes to see the Colonel looking away from him at the black-bearded bald lug that stood before a now unconscious Corporal on the floor. Taking advantage of the distraction, Goran raised his own fist and as the Colonel turned back to his hostage. He was met with the swiftest uppercut he had ever experienced, and let go of Goran, spinning back and landing flat on his face like his Corporal, whom also happened to be lined side-by-side with his superior.

"These guys sure go to a lot of trouble over toilet paper." Goran stated the obvious as Rickles ran into the third stall for some more of the TP.

"You have no idea." Rickles retorted as he emerged from the stall with the goods.

"I've got a ride, let's get goi-

He paused mid-sentence and looked down upon the two enemy soldiers.

"Just a second." The Private said with a raised index finger.

Laying down the objects in hand, Rickles took the Colonel's right hand, and the Corporal's left and outstretched them, placing them on the buttocks of the opposite soldier.

"Hehehe..." The perverted Private giggled.

"You're really creepy, y'know."

"I've gotten better!" He defended.

Outside, the Swordsman and the balding Private hustled past several desert weathered jeeps until they came across a convertible jeep that looked like something made in the 40's. It was a large jeep, with enough elbowroom for a group of seven. It was almost perfect for the next phase of the mission.

"Nice pick, wouldn't you say?"

"Not really." Goran threw in his opinion.

"Well, tough, I already have her hot-wired."

Goran added no further objections to his list of complaints as he jumped shotgun. Rickles pulled back the plastic flap on the steering wheel support and then tugged on a wire. With no keys, he was still able to start the engine.

"Everyone's already at the RV point, Cid and Yates flew the coop already."

"That was fast." Goran surmised.

"Well, they said it's because they overheard that these army goons had just received some _real_ toilet paper." Rickles informed.

"What do you mean _real?_" He asked, now even more confused with this recent escapade.

"I'll show you once the sun's bright enough." He promised.

Rickles pressed the gas pedal and the jeep pulled out of it's parking space and passed the neglectful night watchman. By the end of next week, the Colonel of the 54th Infantry Brigade, and four enlisted men were never seen or heard from again.

"My shirt's getting caught in so many places on this brush." Emilene silently whined.

"Shh, those two standing in the middle of the road might not be the gang we sent." Tex warned the teenage girl.

Of course, Nigel and Steele, standing only 12 feet away, were conversing with the two "Muspeli" men in plain sight. Dawn was only minutes away, and while Muspeli and Kenrovian uniforms were difficult to discern even from a scant few inches away in the dark. Roan, Emilene, and Tex weren't taking the chance just yet that the two newcomers were in actuality, Cid and Yates. They remained concealed in some dried up woody brush, made of dried bushes and branches. An unpaved dirt road lay to the side of the bush, and just a few feet away from both of them, were a pair of railroad tracks stretching to both ends of the horizon. A mounded trail of gravel swimming beneath it to provide the stability it needed.

On the Railroad Crossing, a dusty, but well maintained handcart stood still for the last few hours, having been located on a siding 30 meters down the line and brought to the crossing by the strongmen Steele and Tex. If the mission were to continue as smoothly as planned, it wouldn't be at rest again for much longer.

Then a white light appeared at the end of the road, as it brightened, the four men on the road, all turned their attention to it. It didn't take any of the collective longer than 2 and a half heartbeats to run to a bush opposite of the side of the road Tex and the two "civies" he was charged with protecting hid.

The source of the light, which appeared to be like one star by itself from a distance, gradually melted into two circular stars that were positioned horizontally opposite of each other. The distinctive whir of an engine's motor hummed in with it and as the source of the lights began to slow, a faint screech of brakes could be heard not far away.

It stopped a scant 3 feet from the handcart on the crossing and the driver and passenger of what was now very clearly a jeep spun their heads ninety degrees to his left and right respectively. They then returned their vision back to the abandoned handcart on the crossing's tracks.

"They've got to be here." Rickles concluded.

"You're right, this is the spot on the map he indicated." Goran said. "Crossing 17!" He pointed to a wooden sign in front of the tracks of which he quoted.

"We have your ride Lieutenant Scipio!" Rickles said to what only _seemed _like nobody.

"Nobody's here." The familiar commander's voice replied.

The twosome unbuckled their seatbelts and opened the door to their jeep, and left them open. Rickles stopped a second to turn the engine off and followed suit.

"All clear men, let's continue." Cid smirked as he and his three cohorts emerged from their hiding spots in the bush.

"Where's Tex and the others?" Goran asked with a mixed tone of worry and intimidation.

"It's awright kid, we're in the other bush." The hick Corporal said as he stood out of his own hiding spot, which Roan and Emilene emerged from as well.

"Cid, we were able to find some 'normal TP' when we were on base, we left it in the glove compartment for you." Rickles reported.

"Good work Private, but I'll have to go over it later, Goran here's comin' wit' me on the cart while everyone else gets on that jeep and goes to the next crossing."

"You want me to have all the fun don't you?" Goran asked sarcastically.

"I see someone's on to me." Cid grinned as he walked to the handcart.

Steele replaced Rickles in the driver's seat and the latter took shotgun. Tex however, had crammed himself between him, allowing the other four people in the back of the large jeep to make some more comfortable room. Yates removed a map and then wedged between Steele and Tex to review the next phase of the mission.

"This road intersects at this same rail line 40 kilometers southeast." Yates began. "The 'Phantom Train' frequents this area as a stopping site for its front shellings. Goran and Lieutenant Scipio will take the hand cart south and search for the presence of the train itself."

He drew his finger across the map to the next railroad crossing.

"We'll stop here, right at the edge of the tracks. We'll essentially have the train 'surrounded, and we'll be able to board the bloody thing and fry the cannon and the engine pulling it right to hell." He finished with flare.

"Ok... And we know the train is out there now... how?" Roan asked suspiciously.

"Turn you're head back north in about two hours, those guys are shelling the front more than once a day, but always on an unchanging schedule. You'd think there was a bloody thunderstorm going down over there." Nigel informed.

Steele watched as Goran and Cid began pumping the handlebar on the handcart. As soon as the handle moved, the car itself moved out of the headlights and to the east into the desert.

"Go on Steele, you don't have to look both ways now." Nigel shook the brute's shoulder.

"Maybe if I got a little sleep tonight I'd have the energy to look both ways old man." The snobby PFC floored the gas pedal and jerked all of the passengers, even himself, back into their respective seats.

2 hours later... post dawn...

It was only fifteen minutes after their leave that the first rays of the sun blazed across the desert sands and the steel tracks coursing across it. The wildlife was now aware that predator and prey alike were out and about in the heat, and were now on the move.

Of course, one special case involves it being hard to discern the predator from the prey. The vicious cycle between the Black Cactuars and the so-called Phantom Train.

The Cactuars could be seen as pack animals, hunting their lone prey, strategically in separate groups instead of one thoughtless rush.

The trick however... Was finding the prey.

A figure in red toiled over a wooden hand car on the barren railroad tracks as his counterpart, a purple-jacketed black figure, sat lazily on the edge of the cart. He was whistling through a small thin metal bar with holes poked through the middle that produced various whistling tones when blown trough... Yes, it's a harmonica, and the noise ironically, was getting on the younger red-garbed pre-adult's nerves.

"Will you drop that harmonica and help me with pumping this thing!?" Goran angrily moaned to the Lieutenant.

"Now relax boy, you's younger than me, so you got more spunk. I think you're doin' just fine on your own." Defended the lazy Lieutenant.

"Hey, I'm 19, and you're only what? Thirty?" The Teen snarled.

"Hey, respect your elders boy, don't be a smart ass."

The cart slowed to a halt alongside a short rocky cliff, with concealing foliage at the top of the steep hill.

"I take it going any further is out of the question isn't it?" Cid asked tactfully.

"Well, when you don't help out yeah..." He said out of breath as he joined Cid in sitting out the ride.

"How'd you get to be a Lieutenant with your lack of work ethic?" He tactlessly continued.

"Hey, if I knew the answer to that kid, I'd be God, and the last time I checked, Gods do not talk jive." The Lieutenant commented.

"You're just saying that so you don't have to admit you're lazy do you?"

"Shi-it boy, what's with you an' all your questions?"

"That's only been my second question to you all day."

"No, I mean last night during the raid, and the campfire before that, haven't you ever heard of curiosity killing the cat?" Cid corrected.

"You asked me, to raid a Muspeli stronghold... For _toilet paper!"_

Cid didn't get a chance to answer before a voice atop the hill drew their attention upwards.

"Programming current targeting coordinates Captain!" A disciplined voice called to what only seemed at the time to be no one in particular.

"Set the power level to 45% Sergeant, I want the shells to be powerful, but I don't want to waste power cells on an overkill." Another voice sternly commanded.

"No need to tell me twice Captain, I set the power levels on the way out here. Just as you commanded before... Targeting coordinate entry complete, no errors, adjusting rail incline now." Replied the first voice.

A mechanical whine sounded over the brush, and through the reeds at the top of the hill, a white, three-pronged metallic structure materialized as if it had been a lioness, hiding in the bushes for the careless gazelle that came to close to a watering hole.

As quickly as it had appeared, it stopped, still difficult to tell the true details of it's appearance, or its origins.

"Holy shit... It's right on the siding next to us!" Exclaimed Cid.

_"Ready!"_

An alien humming and flashes of crackling green electricity on the structure followed the command.

"Holy shit!" Goran exclaimed with a start.

"Duck and Cover!"

They hit the dirt right on the Captain's next order.

_"Fire!"_

A whistle like rocket sized firecracker cracked the air like a shell whilst accompanied by a divinely bright-white light (phew, what a rhyme) sent forth another green messenger of death to the battered Niobe front.

The soot on the ground for miles kicked as high as an inch into the air. The force of the launch was so powerful that not only did Goran and Cid fall to their sides, the front of the handcart fell slipped off the tracks. Even the mount of the war machine moved back several feet before whatever was anchoring it to the ground finally countered the force.

_"All right, one shell for this morning's session ought to be enough for the likes of them. Engineer, take us back to home base."_

Almost as quickly as he had issued the order, the unseen Captain and his artillery piece moved forward. The chugging sound of a locomotive could be heard from in front of it...

There was no mistake; the duo had found the Phantom Train!

The lieutenant and the swordsman got up into a sitting position and watched the railgun disappear behind the reeds atop the hill.

"H-hey, I know this place from the map, there's a junctioning track right up ahead, we can follow them right to their station from there!" Cid jumped to his feet.

"We'd better get this back on track!" Goran followed his lead.

Both men ran to and grabbed the edge of the rail car. Lifting the front end into the air and lining up the wheels until they sank back onto the tracks. As soon as they did, they boarded and pumped the handles like there was no tomorrow.

3 miles south: Crossing 18...

Sitting precariously on the desert crossing was a jeep with seven familiar fighters inside. Bushes surrounded the tracks and the road; ready to conceal any would-be guerillas that were on a little train-spotting mission. Guerillas like Roan, Emilene, and the Black Cactuars... Did I mention Roan was getting whiny under the morning heat?

"We've been roasting here for the last 45 minutes and Cid and Goran haven't shown up yet! I can't believe you're trying to pass this off as a plan!"

"Rickles, chap, why couldn't you have gotten a jeep with a roof and roll-down windows? The wind here is getting rather noisy." Commented Nigel as he ignored Roan.

"Easy, none of them had working A/C." He said like it was the most important thing in the world.

In the back seat, Yates scanned the northern horizon for what seemed like the eighth time since their arrival after dawn. There was no sign of life before the horizon, not even a chocobo print in the dust. Save for the silhouettes of the Wyrm Mountains on the eastern edge of his vision.

The eighth time fortunately, proved to be a charm. For as he was about to take a break, over the further of two rolling hills in the distance, an ever-growing cloud of gray smoke puffed from behind the mound. Before Yates knew it, a metallic black and red figure peaked out from behind the rocky hill. It was obvious what was coming; a train was heading through!

"Sergeant!" He yelped as he lifted his binoculars off his head and handed it down to Nigel up front.

The elderly former Major stood as much as he could and still balance in his cramped front seat. He aimed his scope northward and beheld the same sight as Yates. A steam locomotive was shooting down the tracks from less than three miles away. Trailing behind it, was none other than several brown and olive colored camouflaged cars, carrying who knows how many angry Muspell men.

"Steele..." Nigel warned the driver. "Back up. We don't want to become railroadkill, and we certainly don't want to be spotted either, get us back."

Midway through the orders, Steele had already gotten the Sergeant's message and pulled the shiftstick into reverse. The car slowly pulled backwards and concealed itself from the train behind the bushes.

"Let's hope they haven't seen Cid yet."

Nigel's fears would later be relieved by the fact that although now that his superior and his mentee had made it onto the same tracks as the mysterious express, they were seriously falling behind. Human strength proved worthless in a race a handcart and a steam engine and the duos falling behind proved it. By the time they had made it to the base of the first hill before the crossing, the mysterious train had already begun its own ascension of the _second_ hill to the south... And their stamina was draining to half-empty.

"Faster kid, that loony engineer ain't waiting for us!" Cid barked at the civilian.

"I guess that's a mixed blessing..." He panted. "If he had stopped for us, we'd be getting in a trap for sure!"

"Kid, I'll make a soldier-boy outta you yet!"

"Shouldn't we be worrying about the train?"

"Relax, we'll catch up wit' it!" Cid sputtered.

Goran didn't even have to pay attention to know that nothing was further from truth. As the small rail car reached the top of the hill, the train had already half-disappeared over the second hill...

"I'd love to see how the gang's doing without me now!" The Lieutenant tried to get his mind off the imminent failure.

Five minutes of uncomfortable silence had overcast the Black Cactuars as their jeep sat with its engine running behind the bushes. So far, the silence hadn't been broken, not even by a train, especially not the one that should have rumbled past the seven right now. Naturally, at this point, the mercenaries were quite unsettled.

"Steele, pull up, we need to take a look around." Ordered Nigel.

"And get splattered over the next 20 miles of railroad track Sarge?" The Hulking PFC cautioned.

"We'll have to take that risk if we're going to see why our train isn't on schedule."

"The things I do for money." The lummox groaned and pulled the car forward.

With one unanimous look to their left, the mercs saw nothing on the tracks ahead, no trail of smoke was visible in the sky and the tracks were as clear as day.

They turned to their right to encounter the same, empty sight, no smoke, no whistle, and most of all, no train.

"Well boys, either we missed a hundred tons of metal zooming by us or the sun got in our eyes." Tex surmised. "How'd we miss something like that?"

"Penny for your thoughts chief, it's called the 'Phantom Train' for a good reason." An annoyed Rickles answered.

"But there definitely was a train there, I saw it." Emilene defended. "We all saw it didn't we?"

"Well, come to think of it, there's no such thing as group mirages." Yates ad-libbed his two cents as he examined the northern horizon with his binoculars. He was met immediately with the site of two figures, one red and black, and the other purple, emerge over the horizon on a handcart.

"Hey look, it's Cid!" He shouted as he waved the rest of his comrades in arms.

The other end of the tracks was no better a sight than the confusion at the crossing. An exhausted Cid and Goran froze their cart at the top of the second hill where they last saw the train, only to be met with empty track as far as the eye can see.

The swordsman Goran, collapsed on his knees as his body gave out under its very own weight. The more battle hardened Cid however, was able to stay standing, but he leaned heavily on his knees as he took a series of shallow breaths. With the train gone, there was no reason to continue forward, and thus their motivation destroyed.

"Well kid... It looks like you really blew it this time."

"What do you mean ME? What about you?"

"Hold that thought, I see something up ahead." He said noticing a small black object down the road.

He picked up a pair of his own personal binoculars and followed his line of sight to the object. He imminently recognized it as the same jeep Rickles had carjacked earlier that night, and all seven men and woman were huddled up... And looking right back at them.

"Well kid, at least we found our team again."

It was time to rendezvous...

"Tex, hand me your canteen." Yates asked as he lowered his binoculars momentarily.

Despite the two-rank difference between the men, Tex politely took his metallic water canteen and handed it to the small Private. Yates looked at the sun's current position in the sky and attempted to discern its position in relation to his two friends on the other end of the horizon. With only five seconds to process all that information, He held the canteen high up into the air, and shook it calculatingly as to reflect the suns rays whenever necessary.

"H-h-hey kid, Yates is sending Morse code!" Cid whispered what may have well been shout.

Goran slowly climbed to a stand and divided his attention, and the faint flashing on the horizon.

"What's he saying?"

Cid was silent for five seconds before answering Goran's inquiry.

".…...Head...for our...position... We'll come to...you too... meet us halfway..." He translated the signals.

"Then let's-

"Wait-wait-wait, more!" Cid held out his hand to stop the young adult mid-sentence.

"Will...bring...toilet...paper..."

Cid's binoculars shook a bit as the sound of someone face-faulting rattled the aged handcart.

A ten minute walk downhill reunited the two groups as they sat on a rocky outcropping on the side of the tracks where the handcart now rested. Many men sat taking a break under the mid-morning sun, trying to think of explanations of what just happened just a scant 15 minutes ago.

Goran however, was having no part of it, upon arrival, Steele had bluntly shoved his loot from Fort Tonberry against his chest, half-expecting he knew what to do. It was dark whenever Goran had gotten a clear chance to examine the TP, so he never got the chance to take a closer look.

...And boy did what he saw when examining the toiletries puzzle him to no end, it was weird enough that he was earlier able to tell they were multi-colored, but the typewriting and dating on the slips proved one thing... This was _not _any brand of toilet paper he'd ever seen.

"Okay... outdated platoon rosters; ration shipments; Training schedules... What kind of toilet paper is this?" Goran skeptically asked the mercs.

"I'll tell you what kid." Tex spoke. "Real toilet paper is 'bout as rare as ice cubes here in the Niobe, and the Muspeli want to destroy all documents they can as soon as they have no relative use, they use whatever they can get their hands on."

"I was quite surprised when I found the real deal in the first stalls I examined." Yates explained. "Apparently, the camp commissar must have licked a lot of bloody boots shiny in Katarno's cabinet to get it."

"Let me guess..." Roan speculated. "You were thinking that by grabbing that shit-wiping gear, you could find some clues about the Train's whereabouts?"

"Now you're catchin' on lad." Nigel smiled.

Emilene walked up and sat at her brother's side, reading over his shoulder as he went along.

"Just look at these supply requests, they must date back six months. Sixty tons of Concrete; 3,000 Steel reinforced I-beams and support structures; 3 tons of mining explosives, 2,000 kilometers of fiber-optic cable..."

All six Cactuars looked at Goran at that moment like he said the f-word in front of an auditorium full of pre-schoolers. Goran didn't notice their gazes, but Emilene did, and she sure felt uncomforable, for she felt like she was feeling the staring _for_ him.

"...This is just a list of building supplies, I don't see-

"Um, Goran." Emilene interrupted him.

"What Emilene?"

"I think you're on to something."

Cid interrupted the two and walked to their side as well.

"What was that last thing you read about boy?"

"It says two-thousand kilometers of fiber optic cable as the fourth item on the list, but I don't see where you're going."

Cid didn't answer, only grinned.

"...Oh no, I know that look from a mile away! What plan do you have now Hannibal?" He sarcastically asked as he lowered his head.

"Hey Steele," he called, ignoring the worry of his new charge. "Why don't you play in the sand near the tracks wit' your bayonet?"

Steele unsheathed a long, serrated knife from an upside-down sheath on his chest, confused at first, but once it had emerged completely from its holster, the PFC smiled and giggled in that trademark laugh.

"Oh boy boss, you're a genius!"

The Muscleman jogged to the side of the tracks next to the trio parked nearby and squatted over the loose, rocky, red soil. With a jump, he stabbed the earth with the bayonet and dug into the loose crust. He systematically scrounged the knife through the dirt, his strength, combined with the already weak soil made the dagger go through the dirt as if it were made entirely of water...

Until something underground snagged the blade ever so slightly.

He bent the knife sideways, carefully trying to _keep_ the bayonet from losing it's surprise catch. As the blade surfaced, caught on its top flat end, was a thin black cord, no wider than a number two pencil. It was coated in red soot from what seemed like days, months, possibly even years ago...

Of course, if the document was any indication, and indeed it was. It was probably the second answer of months...

As the Cactuars and company sprang to their feet at his discovery, Steele tugged on the cable and it seemed to lengthen as more of it found its way to the surface...

The Cactuars had their lead...

As morning turned into noon, the Cactuars and their three charges followed the bulky mercenary and his cable along the desert tracks, past many a tree and bush. Two hours of following the cord had led them far, far away from the jeep and the handcart and out into the untamed Savannah, kicking up dust and creating an unrecognizable shuffle of footprints in their wake as their seemingly fruitless search continued.

A junction had come up ahead by the time the wire had shifted radically to the right... Underneath the gravel mound supporting the train tracks on top.

Even with his gladiatorial strength, Steele knew he couldn't pull the wire through gravel, wood, AND metal.

"Hey El-Tee, I think this is finally going somewhere!" He said stating the obvious.

The nine warriors crossed the track and leapt down to the right side where the second, off shoot track peeled off from the main line. Goran, sensing the need to pull around his weight, unsheathed his temporarily neglected sword and stabbed it into the ground.

And on his first try, he peeled the same cable right out of its shallow bed and took it in hand, yanking Steele's current job from him. He sheathed his blade and then tugged the wire to follow their so-called lead.

As the sun left its high-noon position, the scenery from before was slowly but surely replaced with a wide, rocky canyon stretching 15 meters into the air, curving into a rolling downward position as if to give the illusion that the stone was being sucked into the path below.

And as if things hadn't been strange enough for the frontiersmen, Right at the end of the path was a dead end. An orange buffer stood at the end of the tracks, and 5 yards behind it was a wall of ancient stone covered by aged rocks, trapped in the long dry soil for centuries at a time. Hardy shrubs and resilient moss lined the area in between.

"Aw, All that power-walking for nothing." Emilene moaned at the taunting development.

"Now may we take a breather Lieutenant?" Roan whined in inquiry.

"No way kiddo, we followed that cord here, we ain't stopping to pussy-foot while Muspell sends the PT out to nuke our lines, we haven't even looked around yet!" Cid countered.

"What's to look at, there's nothing to see here but lots and lots of rock!" Emilene shouted, starting the rare cycle of losing her patience.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Yates began to correct the teen. "Never just glance at something miss, investigation is the key."

As they argued, Goran silently and slowly stepped through the dry field to the stone wall before him, with Steele looking curiously at the surroundings around them. Goran stood before the monument of time with a rather curious glance, gently placing a hand on the canyon wall. He knew that there had to be something about this place that had to do with that cable, there was something important here. What could it have been?

As he contemplated various scenarios in his head, no one saw Steele unsheathe his bayonet again from behind our hero.

He stared nervously for a second, wondering if he could make his mark with the oversized knife in his right hand...

Who was he kidding, he's the Black Cactuars weapon specialist for crying out loud!

He wound up his arm back and focused on his target... the target in Goran's direction. He needn't worry about any choking here. He eyed the white-haired teen evilly as he moved his hand across the hillside, and without hesitation threw the dagger forward...

Goran jumped as Steele's bayonet smashed into the canyon wall right between his right arm and his head. He turned his head around and did an about face as the middle-aged man behind him walked menacingly toward him. Without thinking, Goran's hand willed the White Katana out of it's sheathe and took a step forward, readying to do battle with the traitor before him.

Despite the fact that he was only walking, Steele fast approached the startled youth as he took the traditional arched battle stance of your typical swordsman...

The fight would never come...

As though oblivious to the one-edged blade, the giant walked _past_ Goran and shot his arm out to his knife. Goran was taken aback, what was going on in this guy's head?

Instead of pulling the blade out of where it stuck, Steele pulled it _downward_. There was little resistance as the canyon wall shuddered and shook as soot came loose from the vibration.

Wait a second, _shuddered?_

There was a slight crinkling sound as the "rock" shook from its arbitrary carving by Steele, the other Cactuars, not believing what they were seeing. Whatever Steele had just slit, it was NOT rock, not by a long shot. The material was some sort of fabric or tarp, specially textured to look like the desert background and disguise whatever it was hiding...

It was time to find out what...

Steele sheathed his bayonet and slipped both of his fingers into tarp, revealing a network of metal bars behind it. After examining the hidden structure, the man grabbed the metal itself, and before they knew it, the wall's right side opened outward, revealing a cave entrance within.

The unit crept into the space one by one and shut the door behind them...

The cool cave was a refreshing change from the withering heat outside, but it was miserable dark, and even the guide lights proved to be no match for the intense darkness of the cavern.

However, when the gang looked down, they had plenty of light to notice something intriguing...

Right at their feet, starting from the very doors they entered, a new set of train tracks led into the bowels of the cavernous tunnel...

And as their eyes followed the tracks further inward for them, they saw a recognizable form underneath a pair of suspended catwalks...

A massive, black steam locomotive with a loud red cowcatcher and wheels up front loomed from the other end of the cave. A short, foot-tall smokestack stuck out of the top of the locomotive's cylindrical body just a few feet behind the headlight, which was suspended from the front and center edge of the locomotive's body. Suspended on the roof of the engineer's cabin at the back of the massive engine, was a mounted machine gun with bullets powerful enough to eviscerate all but the strongest tank and fighter armor. Behind the locomotive was a permanently attached coal tender car, loaded to the top with the fragile black soot source for its fuel.

But on the front of the iron horse, was a psychologically intimidating sight. A shield Emblem held in place by the image of a Griffin on its right, and a Chimera on its left.

Underneath the coat of arms, was the image of a ribbon, with the motto of Muspell written on its image...

_Fatherland of mankind_

"Ladies and gentlemen." Cid declared. "Meet the Phantom Train!"

I soooo wanted the chappy to keep going for a while, but my first day of school it tomorrow, so I figured I'd end chapter 4 here and continue this sub-plot in chapter 5. Read and review here now people, and may you be patient enough to wait for me!

"Cindy! The TV's leaking!" Brenda Meeks- Scary Movie 3


End file.
